





I 



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FABLES OF 




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INFIDELI 1 



AND 



FACTS OF FAITH. 



A SERIES OF TRACTS 



ON THE ABSURDITY OF 



ATHEISM, PANTHEISM, AND KATIONALISM. 



BY 



ROBERT PATTERSON. 



CINCINNATI: 

AMERICAN REFORM TRACT AND BOOK SOCIETY. 

1860. 






5>T\*» 



»•• 



. 



♦ * **L 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, 
By GEO. L. WEED, 

In trust for the American Reform Tract and Book Society, Cincinnati, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for 

the Southern District of Ohio. 



2 > 2 4 






PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITIOX. 

This is not so much a volume upon the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity, as an examination of the Evidences of Infidelity. When 
the infidel tells us that Christianity is false, and asks us to reject 
it, he is bound of course to provide us with something better 
and truer instead; under penalty of being considered a knave 
trying to swindle us out of our birthright, and laughed at as 
a fool, for imagining that he could persuade mankind to live 
and die without religion. Suppose he had proved to the world's 
satisfaction that all religion is a hoax, and all men professing it 
are liars? — how does that comfort me in my hour of sorrow? 
Scoffing will not sustain a man in his solitude, when he has no- 
body to scoff at; and disbelief is only a bottomless tub, which 
will not float me across the dark river. If infidels intend to 
convert the world, they must give us some positive system of 
truth which we can believe, and venerate, and trust. 

A glimmering idea of this necessity seems lately to have 
dawned upon some of them. It is quite possible that they have 
also felt the want of something for their own souls to believe; 
for an infidel has a soul, a poor, hungry, starved soul, just like 
other men. At any rate, having grown tired of pelting the 
Church with the dirt-balls of Voltaire and Paine, they begin to 
acknowledge that it is, after all, an institution; and that the 
Bible is an influential book, both popular and useful in its way. 
Mankind, it seems, will have a Church and a Bible of some sort; 
why not go to work and make a Church and Bible of their 
own? Accordingly they have gone to work, and in a. very short 
time, have prepared a variety of ungodly religions, so various 
that the worldly-minded man who can not be suited with one 
to his taste, must be very hard to please. Discordant and con- 
tradictory in their positive statements, they are agreed only in 
negatives ; denying the God of the Bible, the resurrection of the 
dead, and judgment to come. Nevertheless each discoverer or 

constructor presents his system to the world with great confidence, 

(3) 



4 PREFACE. 

large claims to superior benevolence, vast pretensions to learning 
and science, and no little cant about duty and piety. Wonderful 
to tell, some of them are very fond of clothing their ungodliness 
in the language of Scripture. 

No pains are spared to secure the wide-spread of these notions. 
Prominent infidels are invited to deliver courses of scientific 
lectures, in which the science is made the medium of conveying 
the infidelity. Scientific books, novels, magazines, daily news- 
papers, and common school books, are all enlisted in the work. 
The disciples of infidelity are numerous and zealous. It would 
be hard to find a factory, boarding-house, steamboat or hotel, 
where twelve persons are employed, without an infidel ; and hard- 
er still to find an infidel who will not use his influence to poison 
his associates. 

These systems are well adapted to the depraved tastes of the 
ace. The business man, whose whole soul is set on money- 
making and spending, is right glad to meet the Secularist, who 
will prove to him on scientific principles, that a man is much 
profited by gaining the whole world, even at the risk of his soul, 
if he has such a thing. The young and ill-instructed professor 
of Christianity, whose longings for forbidden joys are strong, has 
a natural kindliness toward Rationalism, which befogs the serene 
light of God's holy law, and gives the directing power to his 
own inner liking. The sentimental young lady, who would recoil 
from the grossness of the Deist, is attracted by the poetry of 
Pantheism. Infidelity has had, in consequence, a degree of suc- 
cess very little suspected by simple-minded pastors and parents, 
and which is often discovered too late for remedy. 

These tracts are written to expose the folly of some of these 
novel systems of infidelity— leaving others to show their wicked- 
ness. It may surprise some who would glory in being esteemed 
fiends, to learn that they are only fools. If they should be awak- 
ened now to a sense of the absurdities which they cherish as 
philosophy, it might save them from awaking another day to the 
shame and everlasting contempt of the universe. 



PREFACE. D 

I have not taken up all the cavils of infidelity. Their name 
is Legion. Nor have I troubled my readers with any which 
they are not likely to hear. Leaving the sleeping dogs to lie, I 
have noticed only such as I have known to bark and bite in my 
own . vicinity, and know to be prevalent here in the west. They 
are stated as nearly as possible in the words in which I have 
heard them in public debate, or in private conversation with 
gentlemen of infidel principles. I have made no references to 
books or writers on that side, save to such as I am assured were 
the sources of their sentiments. In such cases I have named 
and quoted the authors. Where no such quotations are noticed 
it will be understood that I am responsible for the fairness with 
which I have represented the opinions which are examined. It 
is not my design to fight men of straw. One entire Lecture — 
that on Prophesy — was rewritten, because, as originally deliv- 
ered, it did not fully and fairly represent the present position 
of infidels on that subject. 

Every historical or scientific fact adduced in support of the 
arguments here used is confirmed by reference to the proper 
authority. But it has not been deemed needful to crowd the 
pages with references to the works of Butler, Buchanan, Paley, 
Leland, and the other great Christian apologists, from whom 
the greater part of what is valuable in these tracts has been 
drawn. The Christian scholar does not need such references; 
and to those for whose benefit I write, their names carry no au- 
thority, and their arguments are generally quite unknown. One 
great object of my labor will be gained if I shall succeed in 
awaking the spirit of inquiry among my readers, to such an ex- 
tent as to lead them to a prayerful and patient perusal of sev- 
eral of the works named on the next page. They have heard 
only one side of the question, and will be surprised at their own 
ignorance of matters which they ought to have known. 

Books on the evidences are not generally circulated. Minis- 
ters perhaps have some volumes in their libraries ; but in a hun- 
dred houses, it would be hard to find half a dozen containing 



PREFACE. 



as many as would give an inquiring youth a fair view of the 
historical evidences of the truth of the gospel Nor where they 
are to be found are they generally read. Being deemed heavy 
reading, the magazine or the newspaper is preferred. Ministers 
do not in general devote enough of their time to such sound 
teaching as will stop the mouths of gainsayers. I have been as- 
sured by skeptical gentlemen, who in the early part of their lives 
had attended church regularly for twenty-two years, that during 
all that time they had never heard a single discourse on the ev- 
idences. Moreover the protean forms of infidelity are so various, 
and many of its present positions so novel, that books or dis- 
courses prepared only twenty years ago, miss the mark; and 
rather expose to the charge of misrepresentation, than produce 
conviction. New books on infidelity are needed. 

When these tracts were first published, it was not designed to 
make a book. Treating of different and discordant systems of 
irrelio-ion, whose only common bond is opposition to the gospel, 
they are necessarily somewhat unconnected. The design was to 
make each tract as complete in itself as space permitted, and to 
secure a broadcast distribution of each among its own appropri- 
ate class of readers. This plan the writer still prefers. Hun- 
dreds will read a tract, who will not lift a volume. Forty or 
fifty penny tracts may be circulated for the price of one volume. 
But a very general desire having been expressed to have them 
collected into a volume, and the first edition in that form hav- 
ing been speedily exhausted, they are now presented in an im- 
proved dress, with the addition of a tract on the relations of 
Faith and Science. Fully conscious of many imperfections, yet 
firmly persuaded of the power of the truth which it exhibits, 
the writer commits this volume to Him whose Word does not 
return to him void. 
Chicago, December 22, 1858. 



Names of a few of the Standard Works on the Evidences of tjie 
Being and Perfections of God, and of the Truth and Author- 
ity of the Scriptures , 

To be had of any respectable bookseller, or in public libraries. 

Modern Atheism, by James Buchanan, L.L. D. 

Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation, by James McCosh, L.L. D., 
and George Dickie, M. D. 

Religion and Geology, Edward Hitchcock, L.L. D. 

The Architecture of the Heavens, J. P. Nichol, L.L. D. 

The Christian Philosopher, Thomas Dick, L.L. J). 

Natural Theology, William Paley, D. D. 

The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and 
Course of Nature, Joseph Butler, D. C. L. 

The Bridgewater Treatises, Whewell, Chalmers, Kidd, &c. 

The Comprehensive Commentary, William Jenks, D. D. 

The Cause and Cure of Infidelity, Eev. David Nelson. 

A View of the Evidences of Christianity, William Paley, D. D. 

The Eclipse of Faith, ascribed to Henry Rogers. 

The Restoration of Belief, ascribed to Isaac Taylor. 

Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, University of Virginia. 

The Divine Authority of the Old and New Testaments Asserted, J. Leland, 

D. D. 
An Apology for the Bible, in a series of letters to Thomas Paine, R. Watson. 
A View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion, S. Jenyns. 
A Letter to G. West, Esq., on the Conversion of St. Paul, Lord Lyttleton. 

Observations on the History and Evidence of the Resurrection of Jesus 

Christ, Gilbert West, Esq. 
Difficulties of Infidelity, Eaber. 
Dissertations on the Prophecies, Thos. Newton, D. D. 
An Introduction to the Critical Study of the Scriptures, T. H. Home, Vol. 1. 
The Evidences of Christianity, Charles Petit Mcllvaine, D.D. 

It is not supposed that any one person can read all these, but the reader is earnestly 
recommended to read several, that he may see the great variety of proofs ■which con- 
firm Christianity, and which it is impossible for any single writer to exhibit. 

0) 



CONTENTS 



No. 22. I Do n't Believe in Religion. 

Page. 

Unbelief a Misfortune, 13 

No harm in Opinions, 16 

Unbelief rebels against God, 18 

An Enemy to Civilization, Liberty and Humanity, 22 

No. 23. Did the World Make Itself? 

Eternity of Matter and Development Theory, 25 

Marks of a Designer in the Structure of the Eye, 31 

The Eye Maker sees, over a wide Field, far, and perfectly,.. 38 
God's Eye upon you, 40 

No. 24. Is God Everybody and Everybody God ? 

Pantheism, an antiquated Hindoo Notion, 41 

A System of Deception and Hypocrisy, 66 

Grossly immoral, 49 

Virtual Atheism, 52 

No. 25. Have We any Need of The Bible? 

Civilization and the Bible, 57 

Revelation impossible — Myths, 95 

Revelation useless — the Inner Light, 63 

Heathen and Infidels ignorant of God and Heaven, 72 

Infidel and Heathen Morality — Plato's, Voltaire's, Paine' s,. 76 

No. 26. Who Wrote the New Testament f 

The Bible not just like any other Book, 85 

Two modes of Investigation,. 86 

Did the Council of Nice make the Bible? 89 

The Mythical Theory — Evidence of Celsus 90 

The Fragment Hypothesis — Bank Signature Book 92 

The New Testament could not be corrupted, 99 

(9) 



IQ CONTENTS. 

No. 27. Is the Gospel Fact or Fable ? Pa ge . 

Historical Evidence — cotemporary, and epistolary, 97 

Letters of Pliny, Peter, and John 102 

Prove the existence, worship, holiness, and sufferings of 
the early Churches, 104 

No. 28. Can We Believe Christ and his Apostles ? 

Gospel unique— Must take or refuse it as a Whole 113 

Testimony to its Truth circumstantial, 118 

Witnesses numerous and independent, 120 

Confirmed by their Sufferings and Death, 123 

No. 29. Prophecy. 

Napoleon's — Apollo's — Obscurity, 129 

Any Philosopher may predict Downfall of Empires, 135 

An awful Truth— if it be true, 136 

JBible Predictions not the Indications of Experience, 137 

Applications of Moral, not of Natural Law, 139 

Predict very improbable Overturns of Nations, 141 

Predict very improbable Preservations, 149 

Grand Distinction of God's Prophecy, 155 

t No. 30. Moses and the Prophets. 

What is Meant by Calling God the Author of the Bible?. 161 
Different Views of Inspiration — Every Book Inspired?.... 164 

Connection of the Bible History and Morality, 172 

Eationalistic Explanation of the Miracles, 173 

Political Importance of the Sacred Books, 174 

The Testimony of Christ 175 

Objections. — The Lost Books of Scripture, 179 

The Law Abolished by the Gospel, 180 

The Imperfect Morality of Judaism, 181 

The Imprecations of the Old Testament, 182 

No. 31. Infidelity Among the Stars. 

Scientific Objections to the Bible, 189 

The Infinity and Self-Existence of the Universe,... 193 

Buffon's Cosmogony — Explosion of a Planet, 219 

The Nebular Hypothesis — La Place's Theory, 207 

The Possibility of any Theory of Creation, 214 



CONTENTS. 11 

No. 32. Daylight Before Sunrise. p age . 

Infidel Objections to Genesis, 217 

The Hindoo and Egyptian Chronologies, 218 

The Bible wrong about the Age of the Earth, 228 

The Bible tells us that the Firmanent is solid, 232 

Light before the Sun, 238 

No. 33. Telescopic Views of Scripture. 

The Source of the Water of the Deluge, 253 

The Stars fighting against Sisera, 255 

The Circuit of the Sun— Grand Motion of the Stars, 264 

Abraham's Seed as the Stars of the Sky for Multitude,... 274 
Future Glories of the Abode of the Eedeemed, 280 

No. 34. Science, or Faith. 

Must Faith disappear before the Certainties of Science?.. .285 

Uncertainties of Science, , 286 

Mathematics, 286 

Astronomy, 288 

Geology, 293 

Your Science all founded upon Faith, 300 

Faith Sufficient for this Life, 303 

We need a Knowledge of which Science is ignorant, 304 

All our dearest interests in the Region of Faith, 305 

Religion the most experimental of the Sciences, 306 

Religious Experience better attested than Science, 311 

Religion the only Science which can make you happy,... 313 



1 



J\o. 22. 

i DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 



" I don't believe in religion." So a great many people say, 
and a greater number think. When one of this class is urged to 
love Christ, to pray to God, to read the Bible, to keep the Sabbath 
holy, to worship God in his family, and bring them to Church, 
or any other plainly commanded duty which he dislikes, he will 
coolly reply, " I am not a member of the Church ; I don't believe 
in religion." As if he supposed that the authority of God's law 
depended on his pleasure, or the truth of religion upon his belief 
of it. 

Some of these unbelievers will lament their unbelief as a mis- 
fortune which somehow or other has befallen them. They would 
like to enjoy that high religious feeling which Christians possess, 
but really they are unable to believe the dogmas of religion. And 
as their opinions are the inevitable result of their education and 
circumstances, if they should happen to be wrong, they can not 
help it, but must just rely upon the infinite mercy of God to pre- 
serve them from the consequences of error, and do not see why 
they may not please God as well as the rest of the world, most of 
whom do not give themselves very much trouble about religion. 

But this convenient creed is short at both ends. For the teach- 
ing of the Bible is that the rest of the world does not please God 
at all, but is crowding down the broad road to destruction ; and 
the particular business of the Holy Spirit is to convince the world 
of this sin of unbelief. And if unbelief of the truth be a mis- 
fortune, and the mercy of God has not prevented it from falling 
upon them, it may happen that it will not prevent a further mis- 
fortune of the belief of a lie from falling upon them, for misfor- 
tunes never come single. If a blind man shall undertake to walk 
a crooked road, sincerely believing it to be straight, neither God's 
mercy nor his sincerity shall prevent him from falling into the 
ditch. So if a wordly-minded man shall persist in the belief that 
ungodliness is just as pleasing to God as piety, and contemptuously 
despise mercy and salvation through Christ, and sincerely believe 
that he is better off in the devil's service than in God's worship, 

» 13 



2 I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 

I see no good reason why God's mercy, which allowed all these 
unfortunate delusions to come upon him, may not as well allow 
them to remain upon him — and as he has had the misfortune to 
live in his sins because of his unbelief, why he may not have the 
misfortune to die in his sins, because of his unbelief — and, as God's 
mercy did not prevent him from despising the service of God in 
this world, why it may not well enough consist with allowing him 
to remain of the same opinion in the next world ; aye, and to con- 
tinue of the same opinion throughout eternity — and as his opinion 
led him to serve the devil on earth, notwithstanding God's mercy, 
why the same opinion may not lead him to continue in the devil's 
service in hell, notwithstanding God's mercy; for surely God's 
mercy is not bound to drag people to heaven, whether they will 
or no. If unbelief, then, be a misfortune merely, it is certainly a 
great one, the cause and beginning of many others, a fire that will 
surely burn the house it has caught on, a sickness that will be the 
death of the sufferer. The man who will not believe God's truth, 
must of necessity believe the devil's lie — for there is no third 
theory — and so live in error, and die in error, and find himself as 
far astray from truth and happiness in the next world as he was 
when he left this. And so unbelief and perdition are as firmly 
chained together by common sense, as they are by Holy Scripture, 
which says, "He that believeth not shall be damned." 

But still you may urge that, " It is very hard that God should 
damn a man for his opinions, seeing he cannot help them — that 
belief or unbelief is wholly involuntary. We believe where we 
have sufficient evidence ; and where we do not see sufficient evi- 
dence, we can not believe if we would. If I see any thing with 
my own eyes, I cannot help believing it. If I have had experience 
of any feeling, I can not help believing its reality. If any scientific 
problem is mathematically proved to me, I can not help believing 
it. But religion gives no such proof to me ; therefore I can not be- 
lieve it. Its doctrines are beyond my comprehension. The miracles 
recorded in Scripture are contrary to all my experience, and the 
duties it requires are utterly beyond my power to perform. How 
can I believe such a mass of mysteries, or live up to such a 
standard of piety?" 

The truth or falsehood of the Gospel does not depend on your 
likes or dislikes, nor the authority of God's law on your notions of 
14 



I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 3 

your ability to keep it. God nowhere commands you to understand 
the mysteries of religion any more than the mysteries of nature. 
You never allege that you can not believe that the sunshine is 
warm and bright because you can not explain how it is so. Nor 
is the evidence on which you are called to believe the truths of 
religion the evidences of your senses ; for you believe in God I hope, 
yet you never saw him : nor yet the evidence of your own experi- 
ence; for you believe you will die, though neither you nor any 
one living ever experienced death. You have no more need for 
mathematical demonstration of the authenticity of the Bible, before 
you believe it and frame your life by it, than of the authenticity 
of the Constitution of the United States, or of the laws of Ohio, 
of which, nevertheless, you have not the slightest doubt, and frame 
your life accordingly. 

And now, as to your not being able to help your unbelief, we 
will inquire a little into that. A person believes according to the 
evidence he sees of the truth of any statement, or according to the 
confidence he has in the integrity of the person who makes it. His 
view of the evidence depends upon the attention he gives to it. 
There may be sufficient evidence for the truth of religion, but the 
man who does not attend to it will not see it. The astronomer 
knows very well that the earth moves round the sun, because he 
has studied the evidence of that truth ; while the savage who has 
not, or the school-boy who will not, obstinately asserts that the sun 
moves round the earth. This they very sincerely believe, because 
of their ignorance ; and while they are ignorant they can not help 
believing as they do ; but surely no one will say that they can not 
help their erroneous belief, unless he can show that they can not 
help their ignorance. The things revealed in the Bible are not 
self-evident truths — had they been so we had needed no Bible: 
he who would believe them must attend to the evidences of their 
truth which God has furnished. If any one, either from dislike 
of these truths themselves, or of the duties to which they lead, 
will refuse or neglect to consider these evidences, it is very certain 
that he will not believe them, and still more certain that he should 
not affirm that he can not help his unbelief. So when you say you 
can not believe the Bible in general, or some of its particular 
truths, that may be very true, because you keep yourself in igno- 
rance of the evidence ; but while you keep yourself ignorant, it is 

15 



4 I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 

false to say you can not help your unbelief. You can certainly 
read the Bible through, from beginning to end. That is the very 
least examination that any book, worth reading at all, can receive. 
You know that it would be only a lie to your own conscience to 
say, " I can not help my unbelief of this book, which I have never 
read." Now I put it to your own conscience, Have you read the 
Bible through, yea or not ? If not, your unbelief is wilful. You 
can help it, but you will not. 

When I speak of reading the Bible, I do not mean such a cursory 
and forced perusal as a lazy school-boy gives his arithmetic, read- 
ing the words and figures because he is told to do so, but never 
giving any serious study to learn their meaning, nor applying to 
his teacher for aid in his difficulties ; but, after yawning over a 
page or two, throwing down the book with disgust, and saying he 
can not believe such nonsense. Just so some persons read the 
Bible, either because they are told to do so by their parents, or 
because their consciences say they should; but they fill their hearts 
and minds with other matters, and when their sleepy attention is 
by chance roused enough to see a difficulty, they never grapple 
with it ; and, though God has promised his Holy Spirit as a teacher 
to those who ask him, they never thought it worth while to try 
whether he was in earnest or not. Now, let the conscience of every 
such person answer, Is it your fault or God's that you are thus 
impious ? Until, then, you repent of your impiety, and earnestly 
pray for the Holy Spirit to teach you the truth, and pray in vain, 
it is utterly false for you to say that you can not help your unbe- 
lief. Your religion or irreligion is just as much a matter of your 
own choice as the trade you practice or neglect, at your pleasure. 

But still it is urged: "Granting that we do choose our belief, 
what great harm can there be in doubting certain mysterious 
dogmas, or denying certain religious doctrines? There must cer- 
tainly be room for harmless differences about religion, as well as 
about other things. My belief or unbelief can do no injury to God, 
who is far removed beyond the reach of my opinions. And if my 
opinions do no injury to my neighbors, I see no reason why I should 
perish eternally on account of them, even though they should prove 
to be erroneous, and I might have known better." 
i If —aye, that is just the point, that if. Let us inquire whether 
unbelief of God's word, and contempt for God's law, be injurious 
16 



I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 5 

treatment of Him or not ; and whether a life of ungodliness and 
irreligion be a harmless example to set before your neighbors ; and 
whether God could, with safety to the universe, allow such people 
as you to think and do as they please with impunity. 

The character of the person whom you refuse to believe has cer- 
tainly something to do with this matter, though you seem not to 
have thought of that at all. There are thousands of persons in 
this world who have no special claim upon your attention, and yet 
the honor due to all men as fellow-beings demands that when one 
of them addresses you, you listen to his communication. It is not 
until a person has earned the character of a public liar and chea 
that you refuse him a hearing, and turn him out of doors. By 
your wilful unbelief and neglect of religion you treat God with 
more contempt than you would show to any passing stranger, and 
turn Him out to receive the like disrespect from others. If an inti- 
mate friend addressed a letter to you, and you returned it unan- 
swered, unperused, unopened, every person who knew that, would 
at once conclude that this friend had deceived and injured you, 
and that you took this method of closing your intercourse with 
him, to prevent him from deceiving and injuring you again. God 
has been a good friend to you ; yet you will neither read his letter 
nor believe his communication. Is that kindly to your friend? 
When the Secretary of Congress sends authenticated copies of the 
laws of the United States to the governors and people of the various 
States, if some of them should refuse to read them, and say they 
did not mean to pay any attention to them, because they did not 
believe in such things, would you think that this was simply a 
queer opinion of these people, but one that had no great harm in 
it? Would you think them good loyal American citizens, albeit 
they would neither acknowledge the Constitution, obey the laws, 
or submit to the judges? Would you not say that their rejection 
of the documents argued their disloyalty to the Government that 
sent them, that their disobedience proved their treason, and that 
their rebellion called for all the forces of the nation to suppress 
and punish it ? God is your Governor. He has sent you a com- 
munication, but you will not receive it. It contains his laws, but 
you will not read them. You live in the daily violation of them, 
and say to your fellow-man you hope it is no harm, that your 
opinions on religion differ from God's, and surely there can be no 
2 17 



6 I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 

great harm in one's opinions. When you answer to God for your 
sins, will you dare to say that you transgressed his law because 
you did not believe it — that indeed you never read it — that you did 
not think such a matter worthy of the least attention — that you did 
not believe in religion ? 

The Lord Jesus Christ is certainly worthy of better treatment 
than you give him. If you could prove him to be a liar and an 
impostor, if you could show that his teachings were impure and 
unholy, and that the record of his mighty works was all a fable, 
then your unbelief would be blameless. There is no middle ground 
for you to take. Jesus is either what he said he was — the Son of 
God, the Savior of sinners ; and his Gospel is what he declares it 
is — God's message for your soul's salvation ; or he is not what he 
professed to be, and so is a liar and an impostor, and as such to 
be despised by all honest men. This is what every unbeliever says 
by his conduct, namely, that Jesus is not worthy of belief. Now 
let me press this upon the conscience of every half-way unbeliever 
who may read this tract : Are you prepared to prove Jesus Christ 
to be an impostor and a cheat? Will you go to the judgment seat 
of God with the evidence in your hands that he is a liar, and his 
Gospel an imposture ? It makes no difference what the form of 
your unbelief may be, whether you are a scoffing libertine or a 
decent church-goer — whether you have sense enough to see the 
consequence of unbelief, and honesty enough to avow it — or whether 
you try to cloak the unbelief of your heart by an oily-tongued civil- 
ity — the language of every person who does not profess a hearty 
faith in Christ, and become a member of his Church, is most plainly 
and unmistakeably this : 

" I do not believe Jesus Christ to be the Son of God." 

"I do not believe that God sent him into the world." 

" I do not believe that he taught the truth." 

" I do not believe that he wrought miracles." 

" I do not believe that he died to save sinners." 

"I do not believe in forgiveness through his blood." 
. " I do not believe that he rose from the dead." 

"I do not believe that he ascended up into heaven." 

" I do not believe that he governs the world." 

" I do not believe that he will come again to judge me and all 
the world at the last day." 
18 



I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 7 

"But I believe that— 
" The Bible is a fable." 

" That such a person as the Jesus it describes never lived." 
" That the Apostles were vile lying impostors," and, 
" That all Christians are either knaves or fools." 
Can you imagine that it is an affair of no consequence that you 
thus vilify Christ and his Gospel, and put him to open shame ? 

The Holy Spirit bears witness to the truth of God's message, and 
of Christ's mission. He has attested the truth of the gospel by 
many most wonderful works ; among others by teaching the first 
preachers to proclaim it in languages they never learned from 
man, else it had never come to your ears. Multitudes of those 
who saw these miracles were convinced so fully of the divinity of 
the gospel, that they suffered death rather than disown it. The 
Holy Spirit has given you stronger evidence of the truth of the 
facts of the gospel history, of the life and death, and resurrection of 
the Lord Jesus, than you ever had of any other history whatever. 
You have no such abundance of conclusive proof that such a man 
as George Washington lived and fought his country's battles, or 
that the Continental Congress declared the Independence of these 
United States, as you have that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, 
and that his Apostles preached the gospel and planted churches 
to preserve and proclaim it over the world. You have only one 
national holiday in the year to commemorate the Declaration of 
Independence, while every week has a "Lord's Day," to celebrate 
the resurrection of your Lord, and every church bell rings out in 
your hearing, V Christ is risen, Christ is risen." If you suppose 
it an easy matter to get people persuaded to give up their usual 
employments, and celebrate commemorations of things which never 
happened, you can try the experiment. Suppose you persuade the 
people of Kentucky, black and white, bond and free, to observe the 
4th of August every year as a holy day, and to go to church and 
give thanks to God for the dissolution of the Union, or for some 
other event which never happened, and which, if they can help it, 
never will. You would, doubtless, be sent to the nearest lunatic 
asylum before you had proceeded far on such an errand. Now, do 
you think Christ and his Apostles were such madmen, or that the 
hundreds of thousands who believed them were fools? Or, that at 
some later period, the world was peopled with a race of idiots, and 

19 



I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 

suddenly, in Italy and England, in Syria and Switzerland, in 
France and Persia, in Germany and Africa, a number of knowing 
men invented the gospel story, and got them to believe it, and per- 
suaded them to employ a day in every week in hearing and com- 
memorating events in which they were no ways interested, and 
which, in fact, never happened ? How do you account for the 
observance of the Lord's Day, and of the Lord's Supper, and the 
existence of the Church of Christ? By your saying, "I don't be- 
lieve in religion," you would make out these things to be all delu- 
sions of Satan. Are the struggles of your own conscience from 
the same source ? Is it a light thing to strive with the Spirit of 
God, and quench the light within you, and feed your own soul 
with a miserable lie, which for very shame you dare not put into 
words, and tell to your neighbors ? 

Do you really believe that it is in no way offensive to God, that 
you treat his message with such contempt as you would not show 
to the meanest of your neighbors — that you receive his Son as a 
lying impostor — that you treat the writings inspired by the Holy 
Ghost as forgeries, and His ordinances as fooleries, and drown His 
voice in your own soul as a delusion? Is it a small sin to despise 
the Father, to reject the Son, and do despite to the Spirit of Grace? 
Or do you suppose He is only jesting who says, " Vengeance is mint 

1 will repay, saith the Lord." * 

And now let us inquire whether your unbelief be not as in 
jurious to your neighbors as it is offensive to God, and hurtful to 
your own soul. Your opinions, it is true, will hurt nobody so long 
as you keep them to yourself. But you do not. Every action of 
your ungodly life proclaims them. Your neighbors all know that 
you do not serve God, that you do not love Christ, that you do not 
belong to his Church, and you tell them, " I don't believe in 
religion." So, by precept and example, you do your best to make 
them all of the same opinions, and teach them to imitate your 
practices. If irreligion and ungodliness be good for you, it is 
equally good for them. It is not your fault that all the world 
is not of your way of thinking and acting, for, if they would be 
guided by you, they would every one say as you say, "I don't 
believe in religion." God judges you according to your heart and 
intention, and according to the tendency of your conduct, though 
he does not let you do a^l the evil you would; just as you judge 
20 



I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 9 

the villain to be an incendiary, and worthy of the penitentiary, 
who sets fire to your house, though you see it, and put it out before 
it is burned down. 

Let us see now what would be the consequences of your unbelief 
to your neighbors, if God did not prevent them. Your forefathers 
were naked savages, with a piece of raw hide thrown over their 
shoulders, who lived in wattled huts, and ate roasted acorns, and 
burned their own children in sacrifice to devils. If you have a 
coat to your back to-day, or a loaf of bread in your cupboard, 
if you have a market to go to, or a road to reach it ; if you have 
a school for your children, or children to send to it, you owe all 
these blessings to that religion which you say you don't believe. 
Yet you would do what you could to stop its progress, and allow 
the savage and the heathen to live on in misery, and butcher each 
other, as they ever have done, and say, " 0, my opinions do no 
harm to my neighbors." Are you not worse than a savage ? 

You are an American — a friend of liberty. For six thousand 
years tyrants have trampled upon the liberties of mankind. Pha- 
raohs and Nebuchadnezzars, Emperors of Home and Emperors of 
Russia, the Sea Kings of Europe and the Khans of Tartary, Kings 
of France and Emperors of Germany, one race of tyrants after 
another, with bloody sword or legal chain, has hewn down the 
rights of men, and manacled their God-given liberties in every 
land where the religion of Christ has not reigned. The world's his- 
tory does not show a single exception. The only notion of true 
liberty you have, you learned from the Bible. The manliness to 
speak for it, and fight for it, and die for it, which bequeathed your 
birth-right of liberty, your Puritan fathers gathered from religion. 
Religion, Christ's religion, which makes men free indeed, is the 
only safeguard of liberty. There is no liberty at this moment save 
in those lands where the religion of Christ prevails. Look over 
the map of the world. Have the people of China liberty ? Are 
the people of Russia free ? Have the butchering, kidnapping tribes 
of Africa freedom. Is Mohammedan despotism liberty ? Is South 
American anarchy liberty ? Would you submit to the police of 
France, or take a lodging in the dungeons of Italy ? Would you 
exchange the Constitution for the Austrian concordat, or the ballot- 
box for three revolutions in the year ? England and America, the 
lands of liberty, are the lands of religion ; but you " don't believe 

21 



10 I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 

in religion." A whole nation once did not. They voted that there 
was no God, that death was an eternal sleep, that reason was the 
only ruler, that the Sabbath and the worship of God should cease. 
Then, having removed the law of God, the only foundation on 
which the law of man can rest, they commenced butchering each 
other, until the streets of Paris ran ankle deep with blood, and 
the remnant rushed into the arms of absolute military despotism 
as a refuge from atheistic anarchy. And this, unbeliever, is what 
you would bring your country to, if you could. Let every one 
adopt your opinions, and we would have all the horrors of the 
French Revolution, and of Napoleon's decrees, and conscriptions 
and proscriptions, before seven years. How dare you say your 
unbelief does no harm to your neighbor, when it undermines the 
citadel of your country's liberties? 

s Your neighbors have consciences and souls. They know they 
have offended God. The guilt of unforgiven sin is a grievous load 
upon the heart of a sorrow-stricken, dying man. He knows, he 
feels in every fibre of his soul, that losses and disappointments, 
that sorrows and pains, that agony of mind and sickness of body, 
which ever follow the transgression of God's laws, are marks of 
God's displeasure. His common sense tells him that these things 
befall sinners too uniformly to happen by chance, and that the 
God who sends them has some reason for thus visiting sin. He 
knows, he feels, that if God continues to deal with sinners after 
death as he has done before it, the sinner will have sorrow. Then 
this death which approaches ! Almighty God smiting every sinner 
with the sword of death, making earth one vast grave-yard, and tne 
human race, shrieking and flying from the fearful foe, compelled 
to become its tenants ! What does it mean ? And conscience 
says, and Scripture says, and he knows it to be true, *'The wages 
of sin is death." to be freed from this sin ! O to be delivered 
from this punishment of a sore wounded conscience, of the pangs 
of guilt, of the present dread, and dreadful prospect of deserved 
torment! He has no power to repair the past, little ability to 
amend the brief future. What shall he do to be saved ? In this 
extremity the gospel comes to his ears, the only religion on earth 
which even professes to offer free forgiveness of sins. He hears 
repentance and remission of sins proclaimed in Jesus' name. He is 
told, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved and 
22 



I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 11 

thy house." He inclines to believe the joyful sound, to accept par- 
don and peace in Jesus. But you stand at his side, and with a 
contemptuous smile you inform him, "I don't believe in religion." 

Inhuman wretch ! Were you able to prove religion false, surely 
in such a world of sorrow, and with such a certainty of a coming 
world of woe as its falsehood would render inevitable, it were horrid 
cruelty to snatch from the parched lips of the dying sinner the 
only draught of peace which earth affords. But how awful your 
conduct, seeing that you can not prove it false, nay, that in your 
own soul you more than suspect it true ! You dash in pieces the 
chalice which contains the blood of Christ — you laugh to scorn the 
voice of mercy to a dying world — you chase peace from earth and 
hope of heaven from men. 

Unbeliever ! This is the hellish malignity of your sin. You turn 
your face to the way of ruin — you murder the only religion that 
can deliver men from sin and hell — you close the gates of heaven, 
put the torch to God's building of mercy, open the bottomless pit 
of woe, and plunge every sinner of earth into everlasting perdition ! 
How long, think you, will God tolerate such an enemy of God and 
man? 

Fly, fly to Christ for pardon of your awful guilt. Bless God 
that there is forgiveness even for such as you. And say to every 
one of your acquaintances to whom you have declared your unbe- 
lief, "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am 
chief:* 

11 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world, 
but that the world, through Him, might be saved. He that believeth 
on Him is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned 
already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only be- 
gotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that light is come 
into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil haUth the light, 
neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But 
he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made 
manifest that they are wrought in God. 

"He that cometh from heaven is above all, and what he hath seen 

23 



s* 



12 I DON'T BELIEVE IN RELIGION. 

and heard that he testifieth, and no man receiveth his testimony. He 
that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. 
For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God, for God 
giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him. The Father loveth the 
Son, and hath given all things into his hand. He that believeih on 
the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believefh not the Son shall 
not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him" — John, chap. 3. 



No. 23. 

DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 



Understand, ye brutish among the people ; 

And, ye fools, when will ye be wise ? 

He that planted the ear, shall he not hear ? 

He that formed the eye, shall he not see ? 

He that chastiseth the heathen, shall he be not correct? 

He that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know ? — PSALM 94: 8, 9. 

Has the Creator of the world common sense ? Did he know what 
he was about in making it? Had he any object in view in forming 
it? Does he know what is going on in it? Does he care whether 
it answers any purpose or not? Strange questions you will say; 
yet we need to ask a stranger question : Had the world a creator, 
or did it make itself? There are persons who say it did, and with 
brazen-faced impudence declare that the Bible sets out with a lie 
when it says, that " In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth." Whereas, say they, " We know that matter is eternal, 
and the world is wholly composed of matter ; therefore, the heavens 
and the earth are eternal — never had a beginning nor a creator." 

But, however fully the Atheist and the Pantheist may know that 
matter is eternal, we do not know any such thing, and must be 
allowed to ask, How do you know ? As you are not eternal, we 
cannot take it on your word. 

The only reason which any body ever ventured for this amazing 
assertion is this, that "all philosophers agree that matter is inde- 
structible by its very nature ; that it can never cease to exist. You 
may boil water into steam, but it is all there in the steam ; or burn 
coal into gas, ashes and tar, but it is all in the gas, ashes, and tar ; 
you may change the outward form as much as you please, but you 
cannot destroy the substance of any thing. Wherefore, as matter 
is indestructible, it must be eternal." 

Profound reasoning ! Here is a brick fresh from the kiln, which 
will last for a thousand years to come ; therefore, it has existed for 
a thousand years past ! 

The foundation of the argument is as rotten as the superstruc- 
ture. It is not agreed among all philosophers that matter is, by its 
own nature, indestructible, for the very satisfactory reason that 
none of them can tell what matter in its own nature is.* All that 

* It will be seen that the proof of the being of God here presented, rests upon tho 
impossibility of self-existent design in matter. 

25 



2 DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 

they can undertake to say is, that they have observed certain pro- 
perties of matter, and, among these, that "it is indestructible by 
any operations to which it can be subjected in the ordinary course 
of circumstances observed at the surface of the globe."* The very 
utmost which any man can assert in this matter is a negative, a 
want of knowledge or a want of power. He can say, "Human 
power cannot destroy matter ;" and, if he pleases, he may reason 
thence that human power did not create it. But to assert that 
matter is eternal because man cannot destroy it, is as if a child 
should try to beat the cylinder of a steam engine to pieces, and, 
failing in the attempt, should say " I am sure this cylinder existed 
from eternity, because I am unable to destroy it." 

But we are not done with the absurdities of the eternity of mat- 
ter. We say to our would-be philosophers, When you tell us that 
matter is eternal, how does that account for the formation of this 
world? What is this matter you speak of? This world consists 
not of a philosophical abstraction called matter, nor yet of one 
substance known by that name, but of a great variety of material 
substances, oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, sulphur, iron, aluminum, 
and some fifty-one others already discovered.! Now, which of 
these is the eternal matter you speak of? Is it iron, or sulphur, or 
clay, or oxygen? If it is any one of them, where did the others 
come from? Did a mass of iron, becoming discontented with its 
gravity, suddenly metamorphose itself into a cloud of gas or a pail 
of water? Or are they all eternal? Have we fifty-seven eternal 
beings ? Are they all eternal in their present combinations ? or is 
it only the single elements that are eternal? You see that your 
hypothesis — that matter is eternal — gives me no light on the forma- 
tion of this world, which is not a shapeless mass of a philosophi- 
cal abstraction called matter, but a regular and beautiful building, 
composed of a great variety of matters. Was it so from eternity ? 
No man who was ever in a quarry or a gravel pit will say so, much 
less one who has the least smattering of chemistry or geology. Do 
you assert the eternity of the fifty-seven single substances, either 
separate, or combined in some other way than we now find them in 
the rocks and rivers and atmosphere of the earth ? Then how came 
they to get together at all, and particularly how did they put them- 
selves in their present shapes ? 
■ i— — — 

* Keid's Chemistry, Chap. II, g 37, Chamhers' Educational Course, 
t Johnson's Turner's Chemistry, § 341. 

26 



DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 3 

Each of them is a piece of matter of which inertia is a primary 
and inseparable property. " Matter of itself can not begin to 
move, or assume a quiescent state after being put in motion."* 
Will you tell us that the fifty-seven primary elements danced about 
till the air and sea and earth somehow jumbled themselves to- 
gether into the present shape of this glorious and beautiful world, 
with all its regularity of day and night, and summer and winter, 
with all its beautiful flowers and lofty trees, with all its variety of 
birds and beasts, and fishes ? To bring the matter down to the 
level of the intellect of the most stupid Pantheist, tell us, in plain 
English, Did the paving-stones make themselves? 

Absurd as it seems to every man of common sense, there are 
persons claiming to be philosophers who not only assert that they 
did, but will tell you how they did it. One class of them think 
they have found it out by supposing every thing in the universe 
reduced to very fine powder, consisting of very small grains, which 
they call atoms ; or, if that is not fine enough, into gas, of which 
it is supposed the particles are too fine to be perceived ; and then 
by different arrangements of these atoms, according to the laws of 
attraction and electricity, the various elements of the world were 
made, and arranged in its present form. 

Suppose we grant this uncouth supposition, that the world mil- 
lions of ages ago existed as a cloud of atoms, does that bring us 
any nearer the object of getting rid of a creator than before ? The 
atoms must be material if a material world is to be made from 
them ; and they must be extended ; each one of them must have 
length, breadth and thickness. The Pantheist, then, has only mul- 
tiplied his difficulties a million times, by pounding up the world 
into atoms, which are only little bits of the paving stones he in- 
tends to make out of them. Each bit of the paving stone, no mat- 
ter how small you break it, remains just as incapable of making 
itself, or moving itself, as was the whole stone composed of all 
these bits. So we are landed back again at the sublime question, 
Viol the paving stones make themselves 1 

Others will tell you that millions of years ago the world existed 
as a vast cloud of fire mist, which, after a long time, cooled down 
into granite, and the granite, by dint of earthquakes, got broken 
Up on the surface, and washed with rain into clay and soil, whence 



* Reid's Chemistry ; Chambers' Educational Course, p. 14, \ 37. 

27 



DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 

plants sprung up of their own accord, and the plants gradually 
grew into animals of various kinds, and some of the animals grew 
into monkeys, and finally the monkeys into men. The fire mist 
they stoutly affirm to have existed from eternity. They do not 
allege that they remember that, (and yet as they themselves are, as 
they say, composed body and soul of this eternal fire mist, they 
ought to remember,) but only that there are certain comets which 
occasionally come within fifty or sixty millions of miles of this earth, 
which they suppose may be composed of the fire mist which they 
suppose this world is made of. A solid basis, truly, on which to 
build a world ! A cloud in the sky fifty millions of miles away, 
may possibly be fire mist, may possibly cool down and condense 
into a solid globe ; therefore, this fire mist is eternal, and had no 
need of a creator ; and our world, and all other worlds may possi- 
bly have been like it ; therefore, they also never were created by 
Almighty God. Such is the Atheists' and Pantheists' ground of 
faith. The thinnest vapor, or the merest supposition, will suffice to 
build his eternal salvation upon ; provided only it contradicts the 
Bible, and gets rid of God. We cannot avoid asking with as much 
gravity as we can command, Where did the mist come from ? Did 
the mist make itself? Where did the fire come from? Did it 
kindle of its own accord ? Who put the fire and the mist together? 
Was it red hot enough from all eternity to melt granite ? Then 
why is it any cooler now ? How could an eternal red heat cool 
down ? If it existed as a red hot fire mist from eternity, until our 
Pantheists began to observe it beginning to cool, why should it ever 
begin to cool at all, and why begin to cool just then ? Fill it as full 
of electricity, magnetism and odyle, as you please; do these afford 
any reason for its very extraordinary conduct ? The utmost they 
do is to show you how such a change took place, but they can 
neither tell you where the original matter came from, nor why its 
form was changed. Change is an effect, and every effect requires 
a cause. There could be no cause outside of the fire mist ; for they 
say there was nothing else in the universe. Then the cause must 
be in the mist itself. Had it a mind, and a will, and a perception 
of propriety ? Did the mist become sensible of the lightness of its 
behavior, and the fire resolve to cool off a little, and both consult 
together on the propriety of dropping their erratic blazing through 
infinite space, and resolve to settle down into orderly, well-behaved 
suns and planets ? In the division of the property, what became 
28 



DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. O 

of the mind ? Did it go to the sun, or to the moon, or to the pole 
star, or to this earth ? Or, was it clipped up into little pieces and 
divided among the stars in proportion to their respective magni- 
tudes ; so that the sun may have, say the hundredth part of an 
idea, and the moon a faint perception of it? Did the fire mist's 
mind die under this cruel clipping and dissecting process ; or is it 
of the nature of a polypus, each piece alive and growing up to 
perfection in its own way ? Has each of the planets and fixed stars 
a great " soul of the world" as well as this earth, and are they look- 
ing down intelligently and compassionately on this little globe of 
ours ? Had we not better build altars to all the host of heaven and 
return to the religion of our acorn-fed ancestors, who burned their 
children alive, in honor of the sun, on Sun-days ? 

An aqueous solution of the difficulty of getting rid of Almighty 
God, is frequently proposed. It is known that certain chemical 
solutions, when mixed together, deposit a sediment, or precipitate, 
as chemists call it. And it is supposed that the universe was all 
once in a state of solution, in primeval oceans, and that the ming- 
ling of the waters of these oceans caused them to deposit the vari- 
ous salts and earths which form the worlds in the form of mud, 
which afterward hardened into rock, or vegetated into trees and 
men. Thus, it is clearly demonstrated that there is no need for the 
Creator if — if — if — we only had somebody to make these primeval 
oceans and somebody to mix them together J* 

The development theory of the production of the human race 
from the mud, through the mushroom, the snail, the tortoise, the 
greyhound, the monkey, and the man, which is now such a favor- 
ite with Atheists and Pantheists, if it were fully proved to be a 
fact, would only increase the difficulty of getting rid of God. For 
either the primeval mud had all the germs of the future plants and 
monkeys, and men's bodies, and souls, in itself, originally, or it had 
not. If it had not, where did it get them? If it had all the Mfe 
and intelligence in the universe in itself, it was a very extraordi- 
nary kind of god. We shall call it the mud-god. Our Pantheists, 
then, believe in a god of muddy body and intelligent mind. But, 

*It might be supposed that such a theory is too palpably absurd to be believed by 
any save the inmates of a lunatic asylum, had not the writer and hundreds of the 
citizens of Cincinnati, seen a lecturer perform the ordinary experiment of producing 
colored precipitates by mixing colorless solutions, as a demonstration of the self-acting 
powers of matter. Common sense, being a gift of God, is righteously withdrawn from 
those who deny him. 

29 



6 DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 

if they deny intelligence to the mud, then we are back to our 
original difficulty, with a large appendix, viz : The paving stones 
made themselves first, and all Pantheists and Atheists afterward. 

But the whole theory of development is utterly false in its first 
principles. From the beginning of the world to the present day, 
no man has ever observed an instance of spontaneous generation. 
There is no law of nature, whether electric, magnetic, odylic, or any 
other, which can produce a living plant or animal save from the 
germ or seed of some previous plant or animal of the same species. 
Nor has a single instance of the transmutation of species ever been 
proved. Every beast, bird, fish, insect and plant, brings forth after 
its kind, and has done so since its creation. No law of Natural 
Philosophy is more firmly established than this, That there is no 
spontaneous generation nor transmutation of species. From Cuvier 
down, all practical naturalists maintain this law. It is true thero 
is a regular gradation of the various orders of animal and vegetable 
life, rising like the steps of a staircase, one above the other ; but gra- 
dation is no more caused by transmutation than a staircase is made 
by an ambitious lower step changing itself into all the upper ones. 

To refer the origin of the world to the laws of nature is no less 
absurd. Law, as Johnson defines it, is a rule of action. It neces- 
sarily requires an acting agent, an object designed in the action, 
means to attain it, and authoritative prescription of those means 
by a lawgiver. Are the laws of nature, laws given by some sup- 
posed intelligent being, worshipped by the heathen of old and 
the Pantheists of modern times under that name ? Or do they sig- 
nify the orderly and regular sequence of cause and effect, which is 
so manifest in the course of all events? If, as Pantheists say, the 
latter, this is the very thing we want them to account for. How 
came the world to be under law without a lawgiver ? Where there 
is law, there must be design. Chance is utterly inconsistent with 
the idea of law. Where there is design, there must, of necessity, 
be a designer. Matter in any shape, stones or lightnings, mud or 
magnets, cannot think, contrive, design, give law to itself or any 
thing else, much less bring itself into existence. There is no 
conceivable way of accounting for this orderly world we live in 
but one or other of these two : Either an intelligent being created 
the world, or — The paving stones made themselves. 

Leaving these brutish among the people — who assert the latter — 
to the enjoyment of their folly, let us ascertain what we can know 
30 * 



DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 7 

of the great Creator of the heavens and the earth. God refers the 
Atheists and Pantheists of the Psalmist's days to their own bodies 
for proof of his intelligence, to their own minds for proofs of his 
personality, and to their own observation of the judgments of his 
providence against evil doers for proofs of his moral government. 
Our text ascribes to him perception and intelligence: He that 
planted the ear, shall he not hear ? He that formed the eye, shall 
he not see? It does not say, He has an eye, or an ear, but he has 
that knowledge we acquire by those organs. And the argument is 
from the designed organ to the designing maker of it, and is per- 
fectly irresistible. A blind god could not make a seeing man. Let 
us look for a little at a few of the many marks of design in this 
organ to which God thus refers us. 

We shall first observe the mechanical skill displayed in the form- 
ation of the eye, and then the optical arrangements, or rather a few 
of them, for there are more than eight hundred distinct contriv- 
ances already observed by anatomists in the dead eye, while the 
great contrivance of all, the power of seeing, is utterly beyond 
their ken. I hold in my hand a box made of several pieces of 
wood glued together, and covered on the outside with leather. In- 
side it is lined with cotton, and the cotton has a lining of fine white 
silk. You at once observe that it is intended to protect some deli- 
cate and precious article of jewelry, and that the maker of this 
box must have been acquainted with the strength of wood, the 
toughness of leather, the adhesiveness of glue, the softness and elas- 
ticity of cotton, the tenacity of silk, and the mode of spinning and 
weaving it, the form of the jewel to be placed in it, and the dan- 
gers against which this box would protect it — ten entirely distinct 
branches of knowledge, which every child who should pick up such 
a box in the street would unhesitatingly ascribe to its maker. Now, 
the box in which the eye is placed, is composed of seven bones 
glued together internally, and covered with skin on the outside, 
lined with the softest fat, enveloped in a tissue compared with 
which the finest silk is only canvas, and the cavity is shaped so as 
exactly to fit the eye, while the brow projects over like the roof of 
a verandah, to keep off falling dust and rain from injuring it while 
the lid is open ; and the eyebrows, like a thatch sloping outward, 
conduct the sweat of the brow, by which man earns his bread, 
away around the outer cover, that it may not enter the eye and 
destroy the sight. If it were preposterous nonsense to say that 

31 



8 DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 

electricity, or magnetism, or odyle, contrived and made a little 
bracelet box, or spectacle case, how much more absurd to ascribe 
the making of the cavity of the eye to any such cause. 

Let us next look at the shape of the eye. You observe it is 
nearly round in its section across, and rather oval in its other direc- 
tion, and the cavity it lies in is shaped exactly to fit it. Now there 
are eyes in the world angular and triangular, and even square ; 
and, as you may readily suppose, the creatures which have them 
cannot move them ; to compensate for which inconvenience, some 
of them, as the common fly, have several hundred. But, unless 
our heads were as large as sugar hogsheads, we could not be so 
furnished, and we must either have movable eyes, or see only in 
one direction. Accordingly, the contriver of the eye has hung it 
with a hinge. Now there are various kinds of hinges, moving in 
one direction, and the maker of the eye might have made a hinge 
on which the eye would move up and down, or he might have given 
us a hinge that would bend right and left, in which case we should 
have been able merely to squint a little in two directions. But to 
enable one to see in every direction, there is only one kind of hinge 
that would answer the purpose— the ball and socket joint— and the 
Former of the eye has hung it with such a hinge, retaining it in 
its place partly by the projection of the bones of the face, and 
partly by the muscles and the optic nerve, which is about as thick 
as a candlewick, and as tough as leather. Most of you have seen 
a ship, and know the way in which the yards are moved, and 
turned, and squared by ropes and pulleys. The rigging of the eye, 
though not so large, is fully as curious. There is a tackle, called a 
muscle, to pull it down when you want to look down; another 
tackle to pull it up when you have done ; one to pull to the right, 
and another to the left; there is one fastened to the eyeball in two 
places, and geared through a pulley which will make it move in 
any direction, as when we roll our eyes ; and the sixth, fastened to 
the under side of the eye, keeps it steady when we do not need to 
move it. Then the eyelids are each provided with appropriate 
gearing, and need to have it durable too, for it is used thirty thou- 
sand times a day, in fact every time we wink. If God had neg- 
lected to place these little cords to pull up the eyelash, we should 
all have been in the condition of the unfortunate gentleman 
described by Dr. Nieuwentyt, who was obliged to pull up his eye- 
lashes with his fingers whenever he wanted to see. There is, too, 
32 



DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 



9 



another admirable piece of forethought and skill displayed by the 
Former of the eye, in providing a liquid to wash it, and a sponge 
to wipe it with, and a waste pipe, about the size of a quill, through 
the bone of the nose, to carry off the tears which have been used 
in washing and moistening the eye. Now what absurdity to say 
that a law of nature, say gravity, or electricity, or magnetism, has 
such knowledge of the principles of mechanics as the eye pro- 
claims its Former to have — that it could make a choice among mul- 
titudes of shapes of eyes and kinds of joints, and this choice the 
very best for our convenience ; and that having known and chosen, 
it could have manufactured the various parts of this complicated 
machine. Such a machine requires an intelligent manufacturer ; 
and yet we have only as yet been looking at the dead eye, paying 
no regard to sight at all. Even a blind man's eye proves an intel- 
ligent creator. 

Let us now turn our 
thoughts to the instrument 
of sight. The optic nerve 
is the part of the eye 
which conveys visions to 
the mind. Suppose, in- 
stead of being where you 
observe it, at the back 
part of the eye, it had 
been brought out to the 
front, and that reflections 
from objects had fallen 
directly upon it. It is 
obvious that it would have 
been exposed to injury from every floating particle of dust, and you 
would always have felt such a sensation as is caused by a burn or 
scald when the skin peels off and leaves the ends of the nerves 
exposed to the air. The tender points of the fibres of the optic 
nerve, too, would soon become blunted and broken, and the 
eye, of course, useless. How, then, is the nerve to be protected, 
and yet the sight not obstructed. If it were covered with skin, as 
the other nerves are, you could not see through it. For thousands 
of years after men had eyes and used them, they knew no sub- 
stance at once hard and transparent, which could answer the 
double purpose of protection and vision. And, to this day, they 
3 33 




10 DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 

know none hard enough for protection, clear enough for vision, and 
elastic enough to resume its form after a blow. But men did the 
best they could, and put a round piece of brittle but transparent 
glass in a ring of tougher metal for the protection of the hands 
of a watch ; and he who first invented the watch crystal thought 
he had made a discovery. Now observe in the eye ; that forward 
part is the watch glass ; the cornea, made of a substance at once 
hard, transparent, and elastic — which man has never been able to 
imitate — set into the sclerotica, that white, muscular coat which 
constitutes the white of your eye, acts as a frame for the cornea, 
and answers another important purpose, as we shall presently see. 
But, supposing the end of the nerve protected by the glass, we 
might have had it brought up to the glass without any interposing 
lenses or humors, as, in fact, is nearly the case with some Crusta- 
cea. We cannot well imagine all the inconveniences of such an 
eye to us. If we could see distinctly at all, we could not see much 
farther or wider than the breadth of the end of the nerve at once. 
Our sight would then be very like that faculty of perceiving colors 
by the points of the fingers, which some persons are said to possess. 
In that case, seeing would only be a nicer kind of groping, and our 
eyes would be more conveniently fixed on the points of our fingers; 
or, as with many insects, on the ends of long antennae. Such a 
form of eye is precisely suited to the wants of an animal which has 
not an idea beyond its food, which has no business with any object 
too large for its mouth, and whose great concern is to stick to a 
rock and catch whatever animalculse the water floats within the 
grasp of its feelers. But for a being whose intercourse should be 
with all the works of God, and whose chief end in such intercourse 
should be to behold the Creator reflected in his works, it was mani- 
festly necessary to have a wider and larger range of vision ; and, 
therefore, a different form of eye. Both these objects, breadth of 
field combined with length of range, are obtained by placing the 
optic nerve at the back of the eye, and interposing several lenses, 
through which objects are observed. By this arrangement a visual 
angle is secured, and all objects lying within it are distinctly visi- 
ble at the same time. This faculty of perceiving several objects at 
the same time is a special property of sight which tends greatly to 
enlarge our conceptions of the knowledge of Him who gave it., A 
man who never saw can have no idea of it. He cannot taste two 
separate tastes at once; nor smell two distinct smells at once; nor 
34 



DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 11 

feel more than One object with each hand at once; and if he hears 
several sounds at the same time, they either flow into each other, 
making a harmony, or confuse him with their discord. Yet we are all 
conscious that we see a vast variety of distinct and separate objects 
at one glance of our eyes. I think it is manifest that the Former 
of such an eye not only intended its owner to observe such a vast 
variety of objects, but from the capacity of his own sight to infer 
the vastly wider range of vision of Him who gave it. 

Besides the breadth of the field of vision, we also require length 
of range for the purpose of life. The thousand inconveniences 
which the short-sighted man so painfully feels are obvious to all. 
Yet it may tend to reconcile such to their lot to know that thous- 
ands of the liveliest and merriest of God's creatures cannot see an 
inch before them. Small birds and insects, which feed on very 
minute insects, need eyes like microscopes to find them; while the 
eagle and the jfish-hawk, which soar up till they are almost out of 
sight, can distinctly see the hare or the herring a mile below them, 
and so must have eyes like telescopes. We, too, need to observe 
minute objects very closely, as when we read fine print, or when a 
lady threads a fine needle at microscope range ; but, if confined to 
that range, we could not see our friends across the room, or find our 
way to the next street. Again, in traveling we need to see objects 
miles away, and at night we see the stars millions of miles away; 
but then, if confined to the long range, we should be strangers at 
home, and never get within a mile of any acquaintance. Now, 
how to combine these two powers, of seeing near objects and dis- 
tant ones with the same eye, is the problem which the maker of the 
eye had to solve. Let us look how man tried to solve it. A mag- 
nifying lens will collect the rays from any distant object, and con- 
vey them to a point called the focus. Then suppose we put this 
glass in the tube of an opera-glass, or pocket spy-glass, and look 
through the eye-hole and the concave lens, properly adjusted, in 
front of it, we shall see the image of the object considerably mag- 
nified. But suppose the object draws very near, we see nothing 
distinctly; for the rays reflected from it, which were nearly paral- 
lel while it was at a distance, are no longer so when it comes near, 
but scatter in all directions, and those which fall on the lens are 
collected at a point much nearer to the lens than before, and the 
eye-glass must be pushed forward to that focus. Accordingly, you 
know that the spy-glass is made to slide back and forward, and the 

35 



12 DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 

telescope has a screw to lengthen or shorten the tube according to 
the distance of the objects observed. Another way of meeting the 
case would be by taking out the lens and putting in one of less 
magnifying power, a flatter lens, for the nearer object. Now, at 
first sight, it would seem a very inconvenient thing to have eyes 
drawing out and in several inches like spy-glasses, and still more 
inconvenient to have twenty or thirty pairs of eyes, and to need to 
take out our eyes and put in a new set twenty times a day. The 
ingenuity of man has been at work hundreds of years to discover 
some other method of adapting an optical instrument to long and 
short range, but without success. Now, the Former of the eye knew 
the properties of light and the properties of lenses before the first 
eye was made; he knew the mode of adjusting them for any dis- 
tance, from the thousands of millions of miles between the eye and 
the star, to the half inch distance of the mote in the sunbeam; and 
he has not only availed himself of both the principles which opti- 
cians discovered, but has executed his work with an infinite perfec- 
tion which bungling men may admire, but can never imitate. The 
sclerotic coat of the eye, and the choroid which lies next it-, are full 
of muscles which, by their contraction, both press back the crystal- 
line lens nearer the retina, and also flatten it ; the vitreous humor, 
in which the crystalline lens lies, a fine, transparent humor, about 
as thick as the white of an egg, giving way behind it, and also 
slightly altering its form and power of refraction to suit the case. 
Thus, that which the astronomer, or the microscopist, performs by 
a tedious process, and then very imperfectly, we perform perfectly, 
easily, instantly, and almost involuntarily, with that perfect com- 
pound microscope and telescope invented by the Former of the 
human eye. Surely, in giving us an instrument so admirably fitted 
for observing the lofty grandeur of the heavens and the lowlier 
beauties of the earth, he meant to allure us to the discovery of the 
perfections of the great Designer and Former of all these wondrous 
works. 

But there is another contrivance in the eye, adapted to lead us 
further to the consideration of the extent of the knowledge of its 
power. We are placed in a world of variable lights, of day and 
night, and of all the variations between light and darkness. We 
cannot see in the full blaze of light, nor yet in utter darkness. 
Had the eye been formed to bear only the noon-day glare, we 
had been half blind in the afternoon, and wholly so in the 
36 



DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 13 

evening. If the eye were formed so as to see at night, we had been 
helpless as owls in the day. But the variations of light in the 
atmosphere may be in some measure compensated, as we know, by 
regulating the quantity admitted to our houses — shutting up the win- 
dows. When we wish to regulate the admission of light to our rooms, 
we have recourse to various clumsy contrivances; paper blinds, 
perpetually tearing, sunblind rollers that will not roll, Venetian 
blinds continually in need of mending, awnings blowing away 
with every storm, or shutters, which shut up and leave us in entire 
darkness. A self-acting window which shall expand with the 
opening of light in the mornings and evenings, and close up of its 
own accord as the light increases toward noon, has never been manu- 
factured by man. But the Former of the eye took note of the 
necessities and conveniences of the case, and besides giving a pair 
of shutters to close up when we go to sleep, he has given the most 
admirable sunblind s ever invented. The nerve of the eye at the 
back of its chamber can not see without light, and its light comes 
through the little round window called the pupil, or black of the 
eye — which is simply a hole in the iris, or colored part. Now this 
iris is formed of two sets of muscles : one set of elastic rings, 
which, when left to themselves, contract the opening ; and another 
set at right angles to them, like the spokes of a wheel, pulling the 
inner edge of the iris in all directions to the outside. In fact it is 
not so much a sunblind, as a self-acting window, opening and 
closing the aperture according to our need of light, and doing 
this so instantaneously that we are not sensible of the process. 

It is self evident that the Maker of such an eye was acquainted 
with the properties of light and the alternations of night and day, 
as well as with the mechanical contrivances for adjusting the eye 
to these variable circumstances. He has given us an eye capable 
of seeking knowledge among partial darkness ; and of availing 
itself for this purpose of imperfect light — an apt symbol of our 
mental constitution and moral situation in a world where good and 
evil, light and darkness, mix and alternate. 

Perhaps some one is ready to ask, what is the use of so many 
lenses in the eye ? It seems as if the crystalline lens and the optic 
nerve were sufficient for the purpose of sight, with the cornea 
simply to protect them. What is the use of the aqueous humor 
and the vitreous humor ? 

Light, when refracted through a lens, becomes separated into 

37 



14 DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF, 

its component colors — red, yellow, green, blue, and violet ; and the 
greater the magnifying power of the lens, and the brighter the 
object viewed, the greater the dispersion of the rays. So that if 
the crystalline lens of the eye alone were used, we should see every 
white object bluish in the middle, and yellowish and reddish at 
the edges ; or, in vulgar language, we should see starlight. 

This difficulty perplexed Sir Isaac Newton all his life, and he 
never discovered the mode of making a refracting telescope which 
would obviate it. But M. Dolland, an optician, reflecting that the 
very same difficulty must have presented itself to the Maker of the 
eye, determined to ascertain how he had obviated it. He found 
that the Maker of the eye had a knowledge of the fact that different 
substances have different powers of refracting or bending the rays 
of light which pass through them, and that liquids have generally 
a different power of refraction from solids. For instance, if you 
put a straight stick in water, the part under water will seem bent 
at a considerable angle, while if you put the stick through a little* 
hole in a pane of glass it will not seem near so much bent. He* 
further discovered that oil of cassia had a different power of 
refraction from water, and the white of an egg still a different 
power. He discovered also that the first lens of the eye, the 
aqueous humor, is very like water — that the crystalline lens is ft 
firm jelly — and that the vitreous humor is about the consistence 
of the white of an egg. The combination of these three lenses of 
different powers of refraction, secures the correction of their 
separate errors. He could not make telescope lenses of jelly, nor 
water ; therefore, he could not make a perfect achromatic telescope, 
but he learned the lesson of mutual compensations of difficulties 
which the Maker of the eye teaches the reflecting anatomist, and 
procuring flint and crown glass of different degrees of refraction, 
he arranged them in the achromatic lens so as nearly to remedy 
the defect. 

I think you will at once admit that Dolland's attempt to remedy 
the evils of confused sight in the telescope, indicated a desire to 
obtain a precise and correct view of objects; and that his success 
in constructing an instrument nearly perfect for the use of astrono- 
mers, gave evidence that he himself had a clear idea of that perfect 
and accurate vision which he thus attempted to bestow on them. 
Shall we then imagine any inaccuracy in the sight of Him, who 
not only desired, but executed, and bestowed on us an instru- 
38 



DID THE WORLD MAKF TSELF. 15 

ment so perfectly adapted to the imperfections of this lower 
world, and whose very imperfections are the materials from which 
He produces clear and perfect vision? No! in God's eye there are 
no chromatic refractions of passion, or prejudice, or party feeling, 
or self-love. He sees by no reflected or refracted light. Father 
of Light! with whom is no variableness, or shadow of turning, 
open our eyes to behold thee clearly ! 

Our text thus leads us to a knowledge of God's character, from 
the structure of the bodies he has given us. He that formed my 
eye sees. Though my feeble vision is by no means a standard or 
limit for his omniscience, yet I may conclude that every perfection 
of the power of sight He has given me, existed previously in Him. 
Has he endowed me, a poor puny mortal, the permanent tenant of 
only two yards of earth, with an eye capable of ranging over 
earth's broad plains and lofty mountains — of traversing her beau- 
teous lakes and lovely rivers — of scanning her crowded cities, and 
inspecting all their curious productions — and specially delighting 
to investigate the bodily forms of men, and their mental characters 
displayed on the printed page? Has He given me the principle 
of curiosity, without which such an endowment were useless? 
Then most undoubtedly He has Himself both the desire to observe 
all the works of his hands, and the power to gratify that desire. 
The Former of the eye must of necessity be the great Observer. 

Wheresoever an eye is found of His handy-work, and wheresoever 
sight is preserved by His skill, let the owner of such an instrument 
know that if he can see, God can, and as surely as he sees, God 
does. 

If it is possible for us to behold many objects distinctly at once, 
it is not impossible for God to behold more. If He has given us 
an eye to look from earth to heaven, then His eye sees from heaven 
to earth. If I can see accurately, God's inspection is much more 
impartial. And if He has given me the power of adjusting my 
imperfect vision to the varying lights and shades of this changing 
scene, let me not dream for a moment that He is destitute of a 
corresponding power of investigating difficulties, and penetrating 
darknesses, and bringing to light hidden works and secret things. 
God is light. In Him is no darkness at all. Neither is there any 
creature that is not manifest in His sight, but all things are naked 
and opened to the eyes of Him with whom I have to do. He has 
seen all my past life — my faults, my follies, and my crimes. 

39 



16 DID THE WORLD MAKE ITSELF. 

"When I thought myself in darkness and privacy, God's eye was 
upon me there. In the turmoil of business God's eye was upon me. 
In the crowd of my ungodly companions God's eye was upon me. 
In the darkness and solitude of night God's eye was upon me. 
And God's eye is oq me now, and will follow me from this house, 
and will watch me and observe all my actions, on — on?— on — while 
God lives, and wheresoever God's creation extends. 

" O God, thou hast searched and known me; 

Thou knowest my down-sitting and mine up-rising ; 

Thou understandest my thoughts afar off. 

Thou compassest my path and my lying down, 

And art acquainted with all my ways. 

For there is not a word in my tongue, 

But, lo ! Lord, thou knowest it altogether. 

Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon 

me. 
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ! 
It is high, I cannot attain unto it. 
"Whither shall I go from thy spirit ? 
And whither shall I flee from thy presence? 
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there, 
If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there ! 
If I take the wings of the morning, 
And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 
Even there shall thy hand lead me, 
And thy right hand shall hold me. 
If I say, ' surely the darkness shall cover me/ 
Even the night shall be light about me ; 
Yea the darkness hideth not from thee, 
But the night shineth as the day ; 
The darkness and the light are both alike to thee." 



No. 24. 

IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 



Pantheism is that perversion of reason and language which 
denies God's personality, and calls some imaginary soul of the 
world, or the world itself, by his name. While Pantheists are 
fully agreed upon the propriety of getting rid of a God who could 
note their conduct, and call them to account for it hereafter, and 
who would claim to exercise any authority over them here, they 
are by no means agreed, either in India, Germany, or America, as 
to what they shall call by his name. Public opinion necessitates 
Chem to say they believe in a God, but almost every one has his 
own private opinion as to what it is. We shall speak of it as we 
Hear it pronounced from the lips of its prophets, here, as well as in 
line writings of its expounders, in Europe and Asia. Some of 
Ihem declare, that it is some absolutely unknown cause of all the 
phenomena of the universe, and others, that it is the universe 
itself. A large class speak of it as the great soul of the world, 
while the more materialistic regard it as the world itself, body and 
soul ; the soul being the source of all the imponderable forces, such 
as gravitation, heat, light, electricity, magnetism, galvanism, vege- 
table and animal life, and especially the mesmeric influence, of 
which many of them regard intellect as a modification ; and the 
body being the sum of all the ponderable substances, such as air, 
water, earth, minerals, vegetables, and bodies of animals and men. 
This creed is popularly expressed in the sentence so often heard, 
"God is every thing, and every thing is God/' But this vast 
generalization of all things into the higher unity — this exalting of 
monkeys, men, snails, and paving stones to the same level of divin- 
ity — by no means meets the views of the more unphilosophical 
and aspiring gods and goddesses, for the very reason that it is so 
impartial. To deify a man and his cat by the same process, is not 
much of a distinction to the former ; and of what advantage is it to 
be made a god, if he does not thereby obtain some distinction? 
This levelling apotheosis is generally confined to the German 
Pantheists, of whom there are multitudes in this city. Their 
more ambitious American brethren ascribe the contented humility 
which accepts it, to the continual influence of the fumes of tobacco 
and lager beer. Man — the soul of man — is the great divinity of 
41 



Z IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

our American Pantheists. "The doctrine of the soul — first soul, 
and second soul, and evermore soul"* — is the doctrine which is to 
regenerate the world. God, in their view, is nothing till he attains 
self consciousness in man. " The universal does not attract us till 
housed in the individual. Who heeds the waste abyss cf possi- 
bility? Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the 
blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mere egotism 
vanishes. The currents of the universe being circulate through 
me, I am part or particle of God." "I stand here to say, 'Let us 
worship the mighty and transcendent soul.'"* "God attains to 
self consciousness only in the human soul." "Honor yourself." 
"Reverence your own individuality." "The soul of man is the 
highest intelligence in the universe." Such are the dogmas which, 
under the name of Positive Philosophy, are poured forth oracularly, 
unsupported by reason or argument, by the prophets of the new 
dispensation — the last and highest achievement of the human 
intellect. 

It is very unfortunate, however, for the honor of the prophets of 
the nineteenth century, that .this profound discovery was invented 
and illustrated, patented and peddled, by the Hindoos, among the 
people of India, two thousand years before the divinity had 
struggled into self consciousness in the mighty and transcendent 
souls of Schelling, Hegel, and Strauss — of Atkinson, Parker, or 
Emerson. We mean to show in this lecture, that it is an Anti- 
quated, Hypocritical, Demoralizing Atheism. 

1. Pantheism is an Antiquated Heresy. — It has rotted and putri- 
fied among the worshippers of cats and monkeys, and holy bulls, 
and bits of sticks and stones, on the banks of the Ganges, for more 
than two thousand years ; yet it is now hooked up, out of its dung- 
hill, and hawked about among Christian people, as a prime new 
discovery of modern philosophy, for getting rid of Almighty God. 
As the Hindoo Shasters are undoubtedly the sources from which 
French, German, and American philosophers have borrowed their 
dogmas, without leave or acknowledgment; and as is generally 
the case with depredators, they have not had time to take the 
whole system, we shall gratify and edify the public by a view of 
this sublime theology, as exhibited in the writings of the Positive 
Philosophers of India. 

* Emerson. 

42 



IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 3 

"When existing in the temporary imperfect state of Sagun, 
Brahm (the Pantheist deity) wills to manifest the universe. For 
this purpose he puts forth his omnipotent energy, which is vari- 
ously styled in the different systems now under review. He puts 
forth his energy for what? For the effecting of a creation out of 
nothing? "No," says one of the Shasters, but to "produce from 
his own divine substance a multiform universe." By the sponta- 
neous exertion of this energy he sends forth, from his own divine 
substance, a countless host of essences, like innumerable sparks 
issuing from the blazing fire, or myriads of rays from the resplen- 
dent sun. These detached portions of Brahrn — these separated 
divine essences — soon become individuated systems, destined, in 
time, to occupy different forms prepared for their reception ; 
whether these be fixed or movable, animate or inanimate, 
forms of gods or men, forms of animal, vegetable, or mineral ex- 
istences." 

"Having been separated from Brahm in his imperfect state of 
Sagun, they carry along with them a share of those principles, 
qualities, and attributes that characterize that state, though predo- 
minating in very different degrees and proportions: either accord- 
ing to their respective capacities, or the retributive awards of an 
eternal ordination. Amongst others it is specially noted, that as 
Brahm at that time had awakened into a consciousness of his own 
Bxistence, there does inhere in each separated soul a notion, or a 
conviction, of its own distinct, independent, individual existence. 
Laboring under this delusive notion, or conviction, the soul has lost 
the knowledge of its own proper nature — its divine origin, and 
ultimate destiny. It ignorantly regards itself as an inferior entity, 
instead of knowing itself to be what it truly is : a consubstantial ; 
though it may be an infinitesimally minute portion of the great 
whole, a universal spirit. 

"Each individual soul being thus a portion of Brahm, even as a 
spark is of fire, it is again and again declared that the relation 
between them is not that of master and servant, ruler and ruled, 
but that of whole and part ! The soul is pronounced to be eternal 
a parte ante; in itself it has had no beginning or birth, though its 
separate individuality originated in time. It is eternal q, parte 
post; it will have no end — no death; though its separate individu- 
ality will terminate in time. Its manifestation in time is not a 
creation ; it is an effluence from the eternal fount of spirit. Ita 

43 



4 IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

disappearance from the stage of time is not an extinction of 
essence — a reduction to nonentity ; it is only a refluence into its 
original source. As an emanation from the supreme, eternal 
spirit, it is from everlasting to everlasting. Neither can it be 
said to be of finite dimensions ; on the contrary, says the sacred 
oracle, "being identified with the Supreme Brahm, it participates 
in his infinity." 

" After having enumerated all the elementary principles, atoms, 
and qualities successively evolved from Brahm, one of the sacred 
writings states, that though each of these had distinct powers, yet 
they existed separate and disunited, without order or harmonious 
adaptation of parts ; that until they were duly combined together, 
it was impossible to produce this univovse, or animated beings ; 
and that therefore it was requisite to adopt other means than fortu- 
itous chance for giving them an appropriate combination, and 
symmetrical arrangement. The Supreme, accordingly, produced 
an egg, in which the elementary principles might be deposited, and 
nurtured into maturity." " All the primary atoms, qualities, and 
principles — the seeds of future worlds — that had been evolved 
from the substance of Brahm, were now collected together, and 
deposited in the newly produced egg. And into it, along with 
them, entered the self-existent himself, under the assumed form of 
Brahma; and then he sat vivifying, expanding, and combining the 
elements, a whole year of the creation, or four thousand three 
hundred millions of solar years ! During this amazing period, the 
wondrous egg floated like a bubble on the abyss of primeval 
waters, increasing in size, and blazing refulgent as a thousand 
suns. At length the Supreme, who dwelt therein, burst the shell 
of the stupendous egg, and issued forth under a new form, with a 
thousand heads, a thousand eyes, and a thousand arms. Along 
with him there issued forth another form, huge and measureless. 
What could that be ? All the elementary principles having now 
been matured, and disposed into an endless variety of orderly 
collocations, and combined into one harmonious whole, they darted 
into visible manifestation under the form of the present glorious 
universe ! A universe now finished, and ready made, with its 
entire^apparatus, of earth, sun, moon, and stars. What, then, is 
this multiform universe? It is but a harmoniously arranged 
expansion of primordial principles and qualities. And whence are 
these ? Educed or evolved from the divine substance of Brahm. 
44 



X 



IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 5 

Hence it is that the universe is so constantly spoken of, even by 
mythologists, as a manifested form of Brahm himself, the supreme, 
invisible spirit. Hence, too, under the notion that it is the mani- 
festation of a being who may assume every variety of corporeal 
form, is the universe often personified, or described as if its differ- 
ent parts were only the different members of a person, of prodigious 
magnitude, in human form. It is declared that the hairs of his 
body are the trees of the forest ; of his head, the clouds ; of his 
beard, the lightning. His breath is the circling atmosphere ; his 
voice, the thunder; his eyes, the sun and moon; his veins, the 
rivers ; his nails, the rocks ; his bones, the lofty mountains ! " * 

" The substantial fabrics of all worlds having now been framed 
and fitted up as the destined abodes of different orders of being, 
celestial, terrestrial, and infernal, the question next arises, How or 
by whom were produced the various organized forms which these 
orders of being were designed to animate? Though hosts of 
subtle essences or souls flowed forth from Brahm, all of these 
remain inactive till united to some form of materialism. From 
this necessity the gods themselves are not exempted. While the 
souls of men, and other inferior spirits, must be encased in taber- 
nacles fashioned out of the grosser elements, the souls of the gods, 
and all other superior spirits, must be made to inhabit material 
forms, composed of one or other of the infinitely attenuated and 
invisible rudimental atoms that spring direct from the principle of 
consciousness." 

" Interminable as are the incoherencies, inconsistencies, and ex- 
travagancies of the Hindoo sacred writings, on no subject, perhaps, 
is the multiplicity of varying accounts and discrepancies more 
astonishing than on the present. Volumes could not suffice to 
retail them all. Brahma's first attempts at the production of the 
forms of animated beings, were as eminently unsuccessful as they 
were various. At one time he is said to have performed a long and 
severe course of ascetic devotions, to enable him to accomplish his 
wish ; but in vain ; at another, inflamed by anger and passion at 
his repeated failures, he sat down and wept ; and from the stream- 
ing tear-drops sprang into being, as his first boon, a progeny of 
ghosts and goblins, of an aspect so loathsome and dreadful, that 
he was ready to faint away. At one time, after profound medita- 

* Duff's India, pp. 99—114. 

45 



6 IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

tion, different beings spring forth : one from his thumb, another 
from his breath, a third from his ear, a fourth from his side. But 
enough of such monstrous legends."* 

There, now, reader, you have the original of the Development 
Theory, with vestiges of oreation enough to make half a dozen 
new infidel cosmogonies, besides the genuine original of Pantheism^ 
from its native soil. Our western Pantheists will doubtless rever- 
ence their venerable progenitors ; and, should the remainder of the 
family find their way here in a year or two, via Germany, the 
public will be better prepared to give a fitting reception to such 
distinguished visitors, including their suite cf divine bulls and holy 
monkeys — their lustrations of cow dung, extatic hook swingings, 
burning of widows, and drowning of children, and other Positive 
Philosophies, from the banks of the Ganges. What an outrage 
on decency for such men to call themselves philosophers and 
christians ! 

2. Pantheism is a system of deception and hypocrisy. — Has any 
man a right to pervert the English language, by fixing new mean- 
ings to words, entirely different from and contrary to those in 
common use ? If he knows the meaning of the words he uses, and 
uses them to convey a contrary meaning, he is a deceiver. The 
name God, used as a proper name, in the English tongue, means 
" the Supreme Being ; Jehovah ; the Eternal and Infinite Spirit, 
the Creator and Sovereign of the Universe." f If, then, a man 
says he believes in God, but when forced to explain what he means 
by that name, says he means steam, heat, electricity, galvanism, 
magnetism, mesmeric force, odyle, animal life, the soul of man, or 
the sum of all the intelligencies in the universe, he is a deceiver, 
and vain talker, abusing language to conceal his impiety. Panthe- 
ism is simply Jesuitical Atheism. Willing to dethrone Jehovah, 
but unable and unwilling to place any other being in his stead, as 
Creator and Ruler of the universe, yet conscious that mankind will 
never embrace open Atheism, Pantheists profess to believe in God, 
only that they may steal his name to cloak their Atheism. We, 
in common with all who believe in God, demand, that, as their 
divinity is, by their own confession, essentially different from God, 
they shall use a different word to describe it. Let them call it 
Brahm, as their brethren in India do, or any other name not 

* Duff's India, p. 119. t Webster's Dictionary. 

46 



IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 7 

appropriated to any existing being in heaven or earth, or under 
the earth; and let them cease to profane religion, and insult 
common sense, by affixing the holy name of the Supreme to their 
thousand-headed monster. 

But the very perfection of Jesuitism is reached, when Pantheists 
profess their high respect for the Christian religion. They do not 
generally speak of it as a superstition, though some of the vulgar 
sort do ; nor do they decry its mysteries, as Deists are in the habit 
of doing ; nor, as Socinians, and Unitarians, and Rationalists, 
attempt to reduce it to a mere code of morals. They grant it to be 
the highest development of humanity yet reached by the majority 
of the human race. The brute, the savage, the polytheistic idolator, 
the star worshipper, the monotheist, the Christian, are all, in their 
scheme, so many successive developments of humanity in its 
upward progress. There is only one step higher than Chris- 
tianity, and that is Pantheism. Well knowing that Christianity is 
diametrically opposed to their falsehoods, and that the Bible, every 
where, teaches that the progress of man has ever been down from a 
state of holiness to idolatry and barbarism, they have yet the hardi- 
hood to profess respect for it, as a system of concealed Pantheism, 
and to clothe their abominations in Scripture language. They 
speak, for instance, of the " beauty of holiness in the mind, that 
has surmounted every idea of a personal God;" and of "God 
dwelling in us, and his love perfected in us, ;; when they believe 
that he dwells as really in every creature : in that hog, for instance. 
Then they will readily acknowledge that the Bible is inspired. 
They can accept — that is the phrase — they can accept the book 
which denounces death upon those fools who, "professing them- 
selves to be wise, change the truth of God into a lie, and worship 
and serve the creature more than the Creator/' as merely a mystic 
revelation of the Pantheism which leaves man to "erect every thing 
into a God, provided it is none : sun, moon, stars, a cat, a monkey, 
an onion, uncouth idols, sculptured marble ; nay, a shapeless trunk, 
which the devout impatience of the idolator does not stay to fashion 
into the likeness of a man, but gives it its apotheosis at once." 
Oh, yes ; they accept the Bible as inspired — a God-inspired book — 
inasmuch as every product of the human mind is a development of 
Deity. The Bible, then, when we have the matter fully explained, 
is quite on a level with Gulliver's Travels, or Emerson's Address to 

a Senior Class of Divinity. 

47 



8 IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

There is nothing, however, in this vast system of monstrosities, 
which fills the soul of a Christian with such loathing and detesta- 
tion, as to hear Pantheists profess their veneration for the Lord 
Jesus, and claim him as a teacher of Pantheism. If there is one 
object which they detest with all their hearts, it is the Judge of 
the quick and dead, and the vengeance which he shall take upon 
them that know not God, and obey not the Gospel. Any allusion 
to the judgment seat of Christ fills them with fury, and causes 
them to pour forth awful blasphemies. They know that the Lord 
Jesus repeatedly declared himself the judge of the living and the 
dead — that '"'the hour is coming in which all that are in their 
graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth : they that have 
done good, unto the resurrection of life, and they that have done 
evil, unto the resurrection of damnation ;" and that the very last 
sentence of his public discourses is, " And these (the wicked) shall 
go away into everlasting punishment ; but the righteous into lifi 
eternal." When they drop the mask for a moment, they cai\ 
accuse apostles and disciples with " dwelling with noxious ex- 
aggeration about the person of Christ."* Christ, as revealed in 
the Gospel, they hate with a perfect hatred. But when it becomea 
necessary to address Christians, and beguile them into the deceit- 
fulness of Pantheism, the tune is changed. Christ becomes tha 
model man — " one conceived in conditions favorable to the highest 
perfectibility of the individual consciousness; and so possessed of 
powers of generalization far in advance of the age in which he 
lived. They can listen to and honor one of the best expounders of 
God and nature in the Man of Nazareth." f The vilest falsehoods 
of Pantheism are ascribed to Jesus, that those who, ignorant 
of his doctrine, yet respect his name, may be seduced to receive 
them. Of him who declared, "Out of the heart of man proceed 
evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, thefts, false witness, blasphe- 
mies," they have the hardihood to declare, " He saw with open 
eyes the mystery of the soul ; alone, in all history, he estimated 
the greatness of man." Calculating upon that ignorance of the 
teaching of Christ which is so general among their audiences, 
they dare to represent the only begotten Son of God as teaching 

* Emerson's Address to a Senior Class in Divinity. 

f Hennell's Christian Theism, which shows how Theists of every nation — Christian, 
Jew, Mahommedan, or Chinese — can meet upon common ground. 

48 



IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 9 

Pantheism: "One man was true to what is in you and me; 
He saw that God incarnates himself in man, and evermore goes 
forth anew to take possession of his world. He said in this 
jubilee of sublime emotion, ' I am divine. Through me God acts ; 
through me, speaks. Would you see God, see me; or see thee 
when thou also thinkest as I now think/ Because the indwelling 
Supreme Spirit cannot wholly be got rid of, the doctrine of it 
suffers this perversion, that the divine nature is attributed to one 
or two persons, and denied to all the rest, and denied with fury." 
Yes, truly, the divine nature is emphatically denied to all unregen- 
erated men, and denied, too, by that divine teacher thus eulogized. 
Hear him : " Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to 
him, ' We be not born of fornication ; we have one Father, even 
God.' Jesus said unto them, ' If God were your Father, ye would 
love me ; for I proceeded forth and came from God ; neither came I 
of myself, but he sent me. Why do ye not understand my speech? 
Even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father, 
the devil ; and the works of your father ye will do. He was a 
murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because 
there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh it 
of his own ; for he is a liar, and the father of it." 

Let Pantheists, then, cease to wind their serpent coils around 
Christianity, and to defile the Bible with their filthy lickings. The 
Lord Jesus will not suffer such persons to bear even a true testi- 
mony to him, and his followers will not permit them to ascribe 
their falsehoods to him, without reproof. Let them stand out and 
avow themselves the enemies of Christ and his gospel, as they are, 
and cease their abominable pretences of giving to the world the 
ultimate development of Christianity. What concord hath Christ 
with Belial? 

3. Pantheism is a system of Immorality. — It loosens all the 
sanctions of moral law. If there is anyone point upon which all 
Pantheists are agreed, it is in the denial of the resurrection, the 
judgment, and the future punishment of the wicked. Their whole 
system, in all its range, from Spiritualism to Phrenology, is ex- 
pressly invented to get rid of God's moral government. If man is 
the highest intelligence in the universe, to whom should he render 
an account of his conduct ? Or who would have any right to call 
him to account? Then, if we are developments of deity, deity 
cannot offend against itself. Further, if our development, both oi 
4 49 



10 IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

body and mind, be the inevitable result of the laws of nature—of 
our organization and our position — man is but the creature of cir- 
cumstances, and, therefore, as is abundantly argued, cannot be 
made responsible for laws and their results, over which he has 
no control. "I am what I am. I cannot alter my will, or be 
other than what I am, and cannot deserve either reward or punish- 
ment,"* Before hundreds of the citizens of Cincinnati, a lecturer 
publicly denied the right of either God or man to invade his indi- 
viduality, by taking vengeance upon him for any crime whatever. 
Thousands, who are not yet Pantheists, are so far infected with 
the poison that they utterly deny any right of vindictive punish- 
ment to God or man. 

But this is not all. Again and again have we listened with 
astonishment to men, declaring that there was no moral law — no 
standard of right and wrong, but the will of the community. Of 
course it was quite natural, after such a declaration, to assert that a 
wife who should remain with a husband of inferior intellectuality, 
or unsuitable emotions, was committing adultery ; that private 
property is a legalized robbery ; and that when a citizen becomes 
mentally or physically unfit for the business of life, he confers the 
highest obligation on society, and performs the highest duty to 
himself, by committing suicide, and thus returning to the great 
ocean of being ! 

We might think that confusion of right and wrong could not be 
worse confounded than this ; yet there is a blacker darkness still. 
The distinction between good and evil is absolutely denied. The 
Hindoo Pantheists declare that they cannot sin, because they are 
God, and God cannot offend against himself; there is no sin — it is 
all maya — delusion. So the American and English school tells 
us it lives only in the obsolete theology. "Evil, we are told, is 
good in another way, we are not skilled in."f So says the author 
of " Representative Men." " Evil," according to old philosophers, 
"is good in the making; that pure malignity can exist, is the 
extreme proposition of unbelief. It is not to be entertained by a 
rational agent. It is Atheism ; it is the last profanation." " The 
divine effort is never relaxed ; the carrion in the sun will convert 
itself into grass and flowers ; and man, though in brothels, or jails, 
or on gibbets, is on his way to all that is good and true." § Were 

* Atkinson's Letters, p. 190. f Festus, p. 48. 

| Swedenborg, or the Mystic (quoted by Pierson, 41 ), p. 68. 

50 



IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 11 

these only the ravings of lunatics, or the dreamings of philoso- 
phers, we should never have hunted them from their hiding-places 
to scare your visions ; but these doctrines are weekly propounded 
in your own city, and throughout our land, from platform and 
press, to thousands of your children and their school-teachers, of 
your workmen and your lawgivers, to your wives and daughters. 
Again and again have our ears been confounded in the squares of 
New York, and the streets of Philadelphia, and the market-places 
of Cincinnati, by the boisterous cry, What is sin? There is no 
sin. It is all an old story. Let men who fear no God, but who 
have lives, and wives, and property to lose, look to it, and say if 
they act wisely in giving their influence to a system which lands 
in such consequences. Let them devise some religion for the 
people which will preserve the rights of man, while giving license 
to trample upon the rights of God ; or, failing in the effort, let them 
acknowledge that the enemy of God is, and of necessity must be, 
the foe of all that constitutes the happiness of man. Impiety and 
immorality are wedded in heaven's decree, and man cannot sunder 
them. 

4. Pantheism is virtually Atheism. — It may scarce seem needful 
to multiply proofs on this head. How can any one imagine a being 
composed of the sum of all the intelligences of the universe? 
Such a thing, or combination of things, never was distinctly con- 
ceived of by any intelligent being. Can intelligences be com- 
pounded, or, like bricks and mortar, piled upon each other? If 
they could, did these finite intelligences create themselves ? If 
the soul of man is the highest intelligence in the universe, did the 
soul of man create, or does the soul of man govern it ? Shall we 
adore his soul? Some Pantheists have got just to this length. M. 
Comte declares, that "At this present time, for minds properly 
familiarized with true astronomical philosophy, the heavens display 
no other glory than that Of Hipparchus, or Kepler, or Newton, and 
of all who have helped to establish these laws/ 7 Establish these 
laws ! Laws by which the heavenly bodies were guided thousands 
of years before Kepler or Newton were born. Shall we then adore 
the souls of Kepler and Newton ? M. Comte has invented a reli- 
gion, which he is much displeased that the admirers of his Positive 
Philosophy will not accept, in which the children are to be taught 
to worship idols, the youth to believe in one God, if they can, after 
such a training in infancy, and the full grown men are to adore a 

51 



12 IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

Grand Etre, " the continuous resultant of all the forces capable of 
voluntarily concurring in the universal perfectioning of the world, 
not forgetting our worthy auxiliaries, the animals." * Our Anglo- 
Saxon Pantheists, however, are not quite philosophical enough yet 
to adore the mules and oxen, and therefore refuse worship alto- 
gether. " Work is worship," constitutes their liturgy. " As soon 
as the man is as one with God, he will not beg. He will then see 
prayer in all action." f "Labor wide as earth has its summit in 
heaven. Sweat of the brow, and up from that to sweat of the 
brain, sweat of the heart ; which includes all Kepler calculations, 
Newton meditations, all sciences, all spoken epics, all acted hero- 
isms, martyrdoms, up to that agony of bloody sweat, which all 
men have accounted divine ! brother, if this is not worship, then 
I say, the more pity for worship ; for this is the noblest thing yet 
discovered under God's sky." "No man has worked, or can 
work, except religiously." J "Adieu, church! Thy road is 
that way, mine is this. In God's name, adieu !" § 

Such is the theory. How faithfully acted out, you can learn 
from the thousands who are now, publicly, upon God's holy 
Sabbath, working religiously upon the bridge that is to span the 
river, or less ostentatiously in their shops and work-rooms through- 
out the city. Within a circle of three miles radius of the spot you 
now occupy, one hundred thousand intelligent beings in this 
Christian city worship no God. 

The abstraction, which the Pantheist calls God, is no object of 
worship. It is not to be loved. If it does good, it could not help 
it, and did not intend it. It is not to be thanked for benefits. It, 
the sum of all the intelligence of the universe, cannot be collected 
from the seven spheres to receive any such acknowledgment. It 
cannot deviate from its fated course of proceeding ; therefore, says 
the Pantheist, why should I pray? It neither sees his conduct, 
nor cares for it ; and he denies any right to call him to account. 
It did not create him, does not govern him, will not judge him, 
cannot punish him. It is no object of love, fear, worship, or obe- 
dience. It is no god. He is an Atheist. He believes not in any 
God. 

Hear, Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord. He is 

* Politique Positive, vol. 2, p. 60. f Emerson. 

X Carlyle — Past and Present. \ Carlyle — Life of Sterling. 

52 



IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 13 

distinct from, and supreme over all his works. He now rules, 
and will hereafter judge all intelligent creatures, and will render 
to every one according to his works. 

1. Reason declares it. The world did not make itself. The soul 
of man did not make itself. The body of man did not make itself. 
They must have had an intelligent Creator, who is God. God is 
known by his works to be distinct from them, and superior to 
them. The work is not the workman. The house is not the 
builder. The watch is not the watchmaker. The sum of all the 
works of any worker is not the agent who produced them. Let an 
architect spend his life in building a city, yet the city is not the 
builder. The maker is always distinct from and superior to the 
thing made. You and I, and the universe, are made. Our Maker, 
Chen, is distinct from, and superior to us. One plan gives order to 
fehe universe ; therefore, one mind originated it. The Creator is 
over all his creatures. 

2. Our consciousness confirms it. If a blind God could not 
make a seeing man, a god destitute of the principle of self-con- 
Gciousness (if such an abuse of language may be tolerated for a 
moment) could not impart to man the conviction, I am, — the ine- 
radicable belief that I am not the world, nor any other person ; 
touch less, every body ; but that I am a person, possessed of powers 
of knowing, thinking, liking and disliking, judging, approving of 
right, and disapproving of wrong, and choosing and willing my 
Donduct. My Maker has at least as much common sense as he has 
given me. He that teacheth man knowledge, shall he not know? 

3. Our Ignorance and Weakness demand a Governor of the 
World wiser than ourselves. The soul of man is not the highest 

intelligence in the universe. It cannot know the mode of its own 
operation on the body it inhabits, much less the plan of the world's 
management. Man may know much about what does not concern 
him, and about things over which he has no control ; but it is the 
will of God that his pride should feel the curb of ignorance and 
impotence where his dearest interests are concerned, that so he 
may be compelled to acknowledge that God is greater than man. 
He may be able to tell the place of the distant planets a thousand 
years hence, but he cannot tell where himself shall be next year. 
He can calculate for years to come the motions of the tides, which 
he cannot control, but cannot tell how his own pulse shall beat, 
or whether it shall beat at all, to-morrow. Ever as his knowledge 

53 



14 IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

of the laws by which God governs the world, increases, his convic- 
tion of his impotence grows ; and he sees and feels that a wiser 
head and stronger hand than that of any creature, planned and 
administers them. Ever as he reaches some ultimate truth, such 
as the mystery of electricity, of light, of life, of gravitation, 
which he can not explain, and beyond which he can not penetrate, 
he hears the voice of God therein, demanding him to acknowledge 
his impotence. 

" Where is the way where light dwelleth, 

"And as for darkness, what is the place thereof? 

" Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, 

" Or loose the bands of Orion ? 

" Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his seasons ? 

"Or canst thou guide Arcturus, with his sons? 

"Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? 

" Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? 

" Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, 

" That abundance of waters may cover thee? 

" Canst thou rend lightnings, that they may go 

" And say unto thee, • Here we are?'" 
4. Our consciences convince us that God is a Moral Governor. 
The distinction between brutes and men is, that man has a sense 
of the distinction between right and wrong. If we find a tribe of 
eavages, or individuals, who indulge their appetites without rule, 
and who do wrong without any apparent remorse or shame, we 
designate them brutes. Even those who in words deny any differ- 
ence between right and wrong, do in fact admit its existence, by 
their attempts to justify that opinion. Though weaker, or less 
regarded in some than in others, every man is conscious of a 
faculty in himself which sits in judgment on his own conduct, and 
that of others, approving or condemning it as right or wrong. In 
all lands, and in all ages, the common sense of mankind has ac- 
knowledged the existence and moral authority of conscience, as 
distinct from and superior to mere intellect. No language of man 
is destitute of words conveying the ideas of virtue and vice, of 
goodness and wickedness. "When one attempts to deceive you by 
a wilful lie, you are sensible not only of an intellectual process of 
reason detecting the error, but of a distinct judgment of disappro- 
bation of the crime. When one, who has received kindness from 
a benefactor, neglects to make any acknowledgment of it, cherishes 

54 



IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 15 

no feelings of gratitude, and insults and abuses the friend who 
succored him, we are conscious, not merely of the facts, as phe- 
nomena to be observed, but of the ingratitude, as a crime to be 
detested. And we are irresistibly constrained to believe that he 
who taught us this knowledge of a difference between right and 
wrong, does himself know such a distinction ; and that he who 
implanted this feeling of approval of right, and condemnation of 
wrong, in us, does himself approve the right and condemn the 
wrong. And as we can form no notion of right or wrong uncon- 
nected with the idea that approbation of right conduct should be 
suitably expressed, and that disapprobation of wrong conduct 
ought also to be suitably expressed — in other words, that right 
ought to be rewarded, and wrong ought to be punished — so we are 
constrained to trace such a connection from our minds to the mind 
of Him who framed them. This conviction is God's law, written 
in our hearts. When we do wrong, we become conscious of a 
feeling of remorse in our consciences, as truly as the eye becomes 
conscious of the darkness. We may blind the eye — we may sear 
the conscience — that the one shall not see, nor the other feel ; but 
light and darkness, right and wrong, will exist. The awful fact 
which conscience reveals to us, that we sin- against God, that we 
know the right, and do the wrong, and are conscious of it, and of 
God's disapprobation of it, is conclusive proof that we are not 
only distinct from God, but separate from him — that we oppose 
our wills against his. And every pang of remorse is a premoni- 
tion of God's judgment, and every sorrow and suffering which the 
Governor of the world has connected with sin — as the drunkard's 
loss of character and property, of peace and happiness, the frenzy 
of his soul, and the destruction of his body — is a type and teaching 
of the curse which he has denounced against sin. 

5. The World's History is the record of man's crimes, and God's 
punishments. Once God swept the human race from earth with a 
flood of water, because the wickedness of man was great on the 
earth. Again, he testified his displeasure against the ungodly 
sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah, by consuming their cities with 
fire from heaven, and leaving the Bead Sea to roll its solemn 
waves of warning to all ungodly sinners, to the end of time. 

By the ordinary course of his providence, he has ever secured 
the destruction of ungodly nations. No learning, commerce, arms, 
territories, or skill, has ever secured a rebellious nation against the 

55 



16 IS GOD EVERY BODY, AND EVERY BODY GOD. 

sword of God's justice. Ask the black record of a rebel world's 
history for an instance. Egypt? Canaan? Nineveh? Babylon? 
Persia? Greece? Home? Where are they now? Tyre had 
ships, colonies, and commerce ; Rome an empire on which the sun 
never set ; Greece had philosophy, arts, and liberty secured by a 
confederation of republics ; Spain the treasures of earth's gold and 
silver, and the possession of half the globe. Did these secure them 
against the moral government of God ? 

No ! God's law sways the universe — that law which, with the 
brazen fetters of eternal justice, binds together sin and misery, 
crime and punishment, and lays the burden on the backs of all 
ungodly nations, irresistibly forcing them down — down — down the 
road to ruin. The vain imagination that refuses to glorify God as 
God, leads to darkness of heart, thence to Atheism, thence to gross 
idolatry — onward to selfish gratification, violent rapacity, lust of 
conquest, and luxury, licentiousness, and effeminacy begotten of 
its spoils ; then military tyranny, civil war, servile revolt, anarchy, 
famine and pestilence, and the sword of less debauched neigh- 
bors, Christ's iron scepter, hurl them down from the pinnacle of 
greatness, to dash them in pieces against each other, in the valley 
of destruction ; and there they lie, wrecks of nations — ruins of 
empires — naught remaining, save some shivered potsherds of 
former greatness, to show that once they were, and were the ene- 
mies of God. 

Oh, America, take warning ere it be too late ! God rules the 
nations. " He that chastiseth the heathen, shall he not correct 
you?" 

A day of retribution, reader, comes to you. Neither your insig- 
nificance nor your unbelief shall hide you from his eye, nor can 
your puny arm shield you from his righteous judgment. His 
hand shall find out his enemies. Oh, fly from the wrath to come ! 



No. 35. 

HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 



Religion consists of the knowledge of a number of great facts, 
and a course of life suitable to them. We have seen three of 
the33 1 that God created the world ; that He governs it ; and that 
He is able to conquer His enemies. There are others of the same 
sort as needful to be known. Our knowledge of these facts, or our 
ignorance of them, makes not the slightest difference in the facts 
themselves. God is, and heaven is, and hell is, and sin leads to it, 
whether any body believes these things or not. It makes no sort of 
difference in the beetling cliff and swollen flood that sweeps below 
it, that the drunken man declares there is no danger, and refusing 
the proffered lantern, gallops on toward it in the darkness of the 
night. But when the mangled corpse is washed ashore, every one 
sees how foolish this man was to be so confident in his ignorance 
as to refuse the lantern, which would have shown him his danger, 
and guided him to the bridge where he might have crossed in safety. 
Some of the facts of religion lie at the evening end of life's jour- 
ney — the darkness of death's night hides them from mortal eye — 
living men might guide their steps the better by asking counsel of 
one who knows the way. If they get along no better by their own 
counsel in the next world, than most of them do in this, they will 
have small cause to bless their teacher. Who can tell that igno- 
rance, and wickedness, and wretchedness are not as tightly tied 
together in the world to come, as we see them here ? 

Solomon was a knowing man and wise : and better than that in 
the esteem of most people, he made money, and tells you how to make 
it and keep it. You will make a hundred dollars by reading his 
Proverbs and acting on them. They would have saved some of 
you many a thousand. Of course such a man knew something of 
the world. He was a wide awake trader. His ships coasted the 
shores of Asia and Africa, from Madagascar to Japan ; and the 
overland mail caravans, from India and China, drew up in the 
depots he built for them in the heart of the desert. He knew the 
well-doing people with whom trade was profitable, and the savages 
who could only send apes and peacocks. He was a philosopher as 
well as a trader, and could not help being deeply impressed with the 
great fact, that there was a wide difference among the nations of the 

57 



Z HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

world. Some were enlightened, enterprising, civilized, and flour- 
ishing ; others were naked savages, living in ignorance, poverty, 
vice, and starvation, perpetually murdering one another, and dying 
out off the earth. 

Solomon noticed another great fact. In his own country, and in 
Chaldea, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and some others, God had revealed 
His will to certain persons for the benefit of their neighbors. He 
did so generally by opening the eyes of these prophets to see future 
events, and the great facts of the unseen world, and by giving them 
messages of warning and -instruction to the nations. From this 
mode of revelation, by opening the prophets' eyes to see realities 
invisible to others, they were called seers, and the revelations they 
were commissioned to make were called visions ; and revelation 
from God was called in general vision. Solomon was struck with 
the fact that some nations were thus favored by God, and other 
nations were not. The questions would naturally arise, Why this 
difference? What difference does it make, or does it make any 
difference, whether men have any revelation of God's will or not ? 

Solomon was led to observe a third great fact. The nations 
which were favored with these revelations were the civilized, enter- 
prising, and comparatively prosperous nations. In proportion to 
the amount of divine revelation they had, and their obedience to 
it, they prospered. The nations that had no revelation from God 
were the idolatrous savages, who were sinking down to the level 
of brutes, and perishing off the face of the earth. He daguerreo- 
types these three great facts in the Proverb: "Where there is 
no vision the people perish; but he that keepeth the law, happy 
is he." 

0, says the Rationalist, the world is wiser now than it was in 
Solomon's days. He lived in the old mythological period, when 
men attributed every thing extraordinary to the gods. But the 
world is too wise now to believe in any supernatural revelation. 
" The Hebrew and Christian religions like all others have their 
myths." " The fact is, the pure historic idea was never developed 
among the Hebrews during the whole of their political existence." 
" When, therefore, we meet with an account of certain phenomena, 
or events of which it is expressly stated or implied that they were I 
produced immediately by God himself, (such as divine apparitions, 
voices irom heaven, and the like,) or by human beings possessed 
of supernatural powers, (miracles, prophecies, etc.,) such an 
58 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 3 

account is so far to be considered not historical." " Indeed, no jusfc 
notion of the true nature of history is possible without a perception 
of the inviolability of the chain of finite causes, and of the impossi- 
bility of miracles."* A narrative is to be deemed mythical, 1st, 
" When it proceeds from an age in which there were no written 
records, but events were transmitted by tradition; 2d, When it 
presents as historical, accounts of events which were beyond the 
reach of experience, as occurrences connected with the spiritual 
world ; or 3d, When it deals in the marvelous, and is couched in 
symbolical language."* So also De Wette, and Schelling, and 
Gabler, and a host of others, who pass for biblical expositors, lay 
it down as an axiom, that all records of supernatural events are 
mythical, viz.: fables, falsehoods, because miracles are impossible. 
Of course, from such premises the conclusion is easy. A revela- 
tion from God to man is a supernatural event, and supernatural 
events are impossible ; therefore, a revelation from God is impos- 
sible. But it would have been much easier, and quite as logical, to 
have laid down the axiom in plain words at first, that a revelation 
from God is impossible, as to argue it from such premises ; for it 
is just as easy to say, that a revelation from God is impossible, as 
to say that miracles are impossible ; and as for proof of either one 
or the other, we must just take their word for it. 

One cannot help being amazed at the cool impudence with which 
these men take for granted the very point to be proved, and set 
aside, as unworthy of serious examination, the most authentic 
records of history, simply because they do not coincide with their 
so-called philosophy ; and at the credulity with which their followers 
swallow this arrogant dogmatism, as if it were self-evident truth. 
Let us look at it for a moment. Other religions have their myths, 
or fables, therefore, the Hebrew and Christian records are fables, 
says the Rationalist. Profundity of logic ! Counterfeit bank bills 
are common, therefore none are genuine. " The fact is, the pure 
historic idea was never developed among the Hebrews," i. e., Moses 
and the prophets were all liars. That is the fact, you may take my 
word for it. " Indeed, no just notion of the true nature of history 
is possible without a perception of the inviolability of the chain of 
finite causes, and of the impossibility of miracles," — which trans- 
lated into plain words is simply this: No man can understand 



* Straus' Life of Jesus, 64, 74, 87. f Bauer's Hebrew Mythology. 

59 



4 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

history who believes in God Almighty. " A narrative is to be 
deemed fabulous -when it proceeds from an age in which there were 
no written records," such, for instance, as any account of the 
creation of the first man — for no event could possibly happen 
unless there was a scribe there to write it. Or, of the fall of man 
— we do not know that Adam was able to write, and no man can 
tell truth unless he writes a history. "A narrative is to be deemed 
fabulous when it presents as historical, accounts of events which 
were beyond the reach of experience, as events connected with the 
spiritual world." Is it not self-evident that you and I have had 
experience of every thing in the whole universe, and whoever tells 
us any thing which we have never seen is a liar. " "When a narra- 
tive deals in the marvelous," such as Xenophon's Retreat of the 
Ten Thousand, Herodotus' narratives of the battles of Marathon 
and Thermopylae, or Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, dealing as it does in such marvelous accounts as the death 
of half the inhabitants of the Empire in the reign of Galerius, or 
any other history of any wonderful occurrence— it is of course a 
myth. Does not every one know that nothing marvelous ever 
happened, or if it did, would any historian trouble himself to record 
a prodigy? "Or, if it is couched in symbolical language," as is 
every eloquent passage in Thucydides, Robertson, Gibbon, or Guizot, 
the records of China, and of India, the picture-writing of the 
Peruvians, and especially the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which were 
fondly expected to do such good service against the Bible — must be 
at once rejected, without further examination, as mythological and 
unworthy of any credit whatever. Thus we are conclusively rid 
for ever of the Bible, for sure enough it is couched in symbolical 
language. Blessed deliverance to the world! But then, alas ! thia 
great deliverance is accompanied with several little inconveniences. 
All poetry, three-fourths of the world's history, and the largest part 
of its philosophy, is couched in symbolical language, and especially 
the whole of the science of metaphysics, from which these very 
learned writers have deduced such edifying conclusions, is, from 
the beginning to the end, nothing but a symbolical application of 
the terms which describe material objects, to the phenomena of 
mind. Alas ! we must for ever relinquish " the absolute," and " the 
infinite," and "the conditioned," with all their "affinities and 
potencies," up to "the higher unity," and "the rhythm of univer- 
sal existence," and all the rest of those perspicuous German hiero- 
60 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 5 

glyphics, whether entombed in their native pyramids for the amaze- 
ment of succeeding generations, by Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel, or 
"worshipping in the great cathedral of the immensities," "with 
their heads uplifted into infinite space," or " lying on the plane of 
their own consciousness," in the writings of Carlyle, Emerson, and 
Parker. They are myths, the whole of them, for they " are couched 
in symbolical language," — and Bauer, De Wette, and Strauss have 
pronounced every thing couched in symbolical language to be 
mythical. Let us henceforth deliver our minds from all anxiety 
about history, philosophy, or religion, and stick to the price cur- 
rent and the multiplication table, the only accounts that are not 
" couched in symbolical language." 

Such is the sort of trash which passes for profound philosophy 
when once it is made unintelligible, and such are the canons of 
interpretation with which men calling themselves philosophers and 
Christians sit down to investigate the claims of the Bible as a 
revelation from God. If they would speak out their true sentiments, 
they would say. " There cannot be any revelation from God, because 
there is no God." But they could not call themselves professors of 
Christian colleges, and pastors of Congregational churches, and 
reap the emoluments of such situations, if they would honestly 
avow their Atheism. Besides the world would see too plainly the 
drift of their teaching ; therefore it is cloaked under a profession 
of belief in God, the Creator, who however is to be carefully 
prevented from ever showing himself again in the world he has 
made. 

No proof is attempted for the declaration that miracles are 
impossible. Yet, surely, if it implies a contradiction to say so, 
that contradiction could be shown. That it is not self-evident is 
shown by the general belief of mankind that miracles have occurred. 
No man who believes in a supernatural being, can deny the possi- 
bility of supernatural actings. The creation of the world is the 
most stupendous of all miracles, utterly beyond the power of any 
finite causes, and entirely beyond the reach of our experience, yet 
these men admit that this miracle occurred. Supernatural events 
then are not impossible, nor unprecedented. 

The vain notion that God, having created the world at first, left 
it for ever after to the operation of natural laws, is conclusively 
demolished by the discoveries of geology. These discoveries estab- 
lish the fact recorded in Scripture, that in bringing the world into 

61 



6 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

its present form there were several distinct and successive interpo- 
sitions of supernatural power, in the distinct and successive crea- 
tions of different species of vegetable and animal life. In former 
periods the earth was so warm that the present races of men and 
animals could not have lived on it, and the plants and animals of 
that age could not live now. These very men are profuse in proving 
that the earth existed for ages before man made his appearance 
upon it. This being the case, we are compelled to acknowledge the 
creating power of a God above the laws of nature, for there is no 
law of nature which can either create a new species of plants or 
animals — nor yet change one kind into another — make an oak into 
a larch, or an ox into a sheep, or a goose into a turkey, or a mega- 
therium into an elephant — much less into a man. Some men have 
dreamed of such changes as these, but no instance of such a change 
has ever been alleged in proof of the notion. The most distin- 
guished anatomists and geologists are fully agreed that no such 
change of one animal into another ever took place ; much less that 
any animal ever was changed into a man. Lyell says at the con- 
clusion of four chapters devoted to an investigation of the subject: 
" From the above considerations it appears that species have a real 
existence in nature, and that each was endowed at the time of its 
creation, with the attributes and organization by which it is now 
distinguished."* Cuvier, from his comprehensive survey of the 
fossils of former periods, establishes the fact, " that the species now 
living are not mere varieties of the species which are lost/' And 
Agassiz says, " I have the conviction that species have been created 
successively, at distinct intervals. "f Revelations of God's special 
interpositions in the affairs of this world are thus written by his 
own finger in the fossils and coal, and engraved on the everlasting 
granite of the earth's foundation stones. Dumb beasts and dead 
reptiles start forward to give their irrefutable testimony to the 
repeated supernatural acts of their Creator in this world which he 
had made. Every distinct species of plants and animals is proof 
of a distinct supernatural overruling of the present laws of nature. 
The experience of man is not the limit of knowledge. His own 
existence is a proof that the chain of finite causes is not inviolable. 
Geology sweeps away the very foundations of scepticism, by demon- 



* Elements of Geology, page 611, 9th edition. 
f See Pearson on Infidelity, page 93, 40th edition. 

62 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 7 

strating that certain phenomena produced immediately by God 
himself — the phenomena of the creation of life — -have occurred 
repeatedly in the history of our globe. Revelation is not impos- 
sible because supernatural. The world is just as full of superna- 
tural works as of natural. Nor is it incredible because it records 
miracles. The miracles recorded in the coal measures are as 
astonishing as any recorded in the Bible. 

The Spiritualist next advances to assure us, that any external 
revelation from God to man is useless, because man is wise enough 
without it. The vulgar exposition of this sentiment is familiar to 
every reader. " You need not begin to preach Bible to me. I 
know my duty well enough without the Bible." The more educated 
attempt to reason the matter after this fashion : "Miraculous phe- 
nomena will never prove the goodness and veracity of God, if we 
do not know these qualities in him without a miracle.'"* We may 
remark in passing, that there are some other attributes of God 
besides goodness and veracity — holiness and justice for instance, 
which are proved by miracles. "Can thunder from the thirty-two 
azimuths, repeated daily for centuries, make God's laws more god- 
like to me ? Brother, no. Perhaps I am grown to be a man now, 
and do not need the thunder and the terror any longer. Perhaps I am 
above being frightened. Perhaps it is not fear but reverence that 
shall now lead me ! Revelation ! Inspirations ! And thy own god- 
created soul, dost thou not call that a revelation ?"f It is manifest 
however, that if Mr. Carlyle needs not the Sinai thunder to assure 
him that the law given on Sinai was from God, there were then, and 
are now many who do, and some of his own sect who doubt in spite 
of it. If he is above the weakness of fearing God, all the world is 
not so. 

The claims of a divine teacher are as unceremoniously rejected 
as those of a divine revelation. " If it depends on Jesus it is not 
eternally true, and if it is not eternally true it is no truth at all," 
says Parker. As if eternally true and sufficiently known were just 
the same thing ; or as if because vaccination would always have 
prevented the small-pox, the world is under no obligation to 
Jenner for informing us of the fact. In the same strain Emerson 
despises instruction: "It is not instruction but provocation that I 
can receive from another soul. What he announces, I must find 

• Newman's Phases of Faith, 157. f Oarlyla's Past and Present, 307. 

63 



8 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

true in me, or wholly reject ; and on his word, or as his second, be 
he who he may, I can accept nothing." Again says Parker, " Chris* 
tianity is dependent on no outside authority. We verify its 
eternal truth in our soul."* His aim is " to separate religion from 
whatever is finite — church, book, person — and let it rest on its 
absolute truth."f "It bows to no idols, neither the church, nor the 
Bible, nor yet Jesus, but God only : its Redeemer is within ; its sal- 
vation within : its heaven and its oracle of God." J The whole strain 
of this school of writers and their disciples is one of depreciation 
of external revelation, and of exaltation of the inner light which 
every man is supposed to carry within him. Religion is "no 
Morison's pill from without," but a " clearing of the inner light/' 
a "re-awakening of our own selves from within. "§ So Mr. New- 
man[| abundantly argues that an authoritative book revelation of 
moral and spiritual truth is impossible — that God reveals himself 
within us and not without us — and that a revelation of all moral and 
religious truth necessary for us to know is to be obtained by insight 
or gazing into the depths of our own consciousness. The sum of the 
whole business is, that neither God or man can reveal any religious 
truth to our minds, or as Parker felicitously expresses it, " on his 
word, or as his second, be he who he may, I can accept nothing." 

Now, we are tempted to ask, who are these wonderful prodigies, 
so incapable of receiving instruction from any body? And to our 
amazement we learn, that some forty odd years ago they made 
their appearance among mankind as little squalling babies, with- 
out insight enough to know their own names, or where they came 
from, and were actually dependent on an external revelation, from 
their nurses, for sense enough to find their mothers' breasts. And 
as they grew a little larger, they obtained the power of speaking 
articulate sounds by external revelation : hearing and imitating 
the sounds made by others. Further, upon a memorable day, they 
had a " book revelation " made to them, in the shape of a penny 
primer, and were initiated into the mysteries of A, B, C, by "the 
instructions of another, be he who he may." There was absolutely 
not the least "insight," or "spiritual faculty," or "self-conscious- 
ness," in one of them, by which they then could, or ever to this 
hour did " find true within them" any sort of necessary connection 



* Discourse on Religion, page 209. % lb. page 37. || lb. page 359. 

f Carlyle's Past and Present, 312. § The Soul Passive, page 342. 

64 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 



9 



between the signs, c, a, t, — d, o, g, — and the sounds cat, dog, 
or any other sounds represented by any other letters of the 
alphabet. Faith in the word of their teachers is absolutely the 
sole foundation and only source of their ability to read and 
write. On "the word of another, and as his second, be he who he 
may," every one of them has accepted every intelligible word he 
speaks or writes. 

And this is not half of their indebtedness to external revelation. 
For they will not deny that a Feejee cannibal has just the same 
"insight/' "spiritual faculty," "mighty and transcendent soul," 
" self-consciousness," or any other name by which they may dignify 
our common humanity, which they themselves possess. How does 
it happen, then, that these writers, and all the rest of our Spirit- 
ualists, are not assembled around the cannibal's oven, smearing 
their faces with the blood, and feasting themselves on the limbs of 
women and children? The inner nature of the cannibal and the 
spiritualist is the same : whence comes the difference of character 
and conduct? And the inner light, too, is the same; for they 
assure us that " inspiration, like God's omnipresence, is coextensive 
with the race." Is it not, after all, mere external revelation, in the 
shape of education — aye, and moral and religious teaching-*~that 
makes the whole difference between the civilized American and his 
inspired Feejee brother? 

These gentlemen not only acknowledge, but try to repay their 
obligations to external revelation. As it is impossible for God to 
give the world a book revelation of moral and religious truth, they 
modestly propose to come to his assistance, it being quite possible 
for some men to do what it is impossible for God. Accordingly, 
we have a book revelation of moral and religious truth, from one, 
in his treatise on The Soul, an " external revelation" from another, 
in his Discourse concerning religion, a " Morison's pill from the 
outside," from a third, in his Past and Present, and "announce- 
ments" from a fourth, which assuredly the great mass of mankind 
never " found true within them," else his orations and publications 
had not been needed to convert them. It is to be understood, then, 
that an " external revelation," or a " book revelation " of spiritual 
truth is impossible, only when it comes from God, but that 
these gentlemen have proved it quite possible for themselves to 
deliver one. 

In so doing they have undoubtedly attempted to meet the wishes 
5 6£ 



10 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

of the greater part of mankind, who have in all lands and in all 
ages longed for some outward revelation from God, and testified 
their desire by running after all sorts of omens, auguries, and 
oracles, consulting witches, and treasuring Sibylline leaves, employ- 
ing writing mediums, and listening to spirit rappers. The " inspi- 
ration which is limited to no sect, age, or nation — which is wide as 
the world, and common as God,"* has never produced a nation of 
Spiritualists: a fact very unaccountable, if Spiritualism be true, 
and one which might well lead these writers to acknowledge at 
least one kind of total depravity, namely, that inspired men should 
love the darkness of external revelations, and even of book revela- 
tions, and read Bibles, and Korans, and Vedas, and " Discourses 
concerning religion," and " Phases of Faith/' while yet " every 
thing that is of use to man, lies in the plane of our own conscious- 
ness." f Surely, such a universal craving after an external revela- 
tion testifies to a felt necessity for it, and renders it probable, 
or at least desirable, that God would supply the deficiency. Is 
the religious appetite the only one for which God has provided 
no supply? 

But we are instructed, that, " as we have bodily senses to lay 
hold on matter, and supply bodily wants, through which we 
obtain naturally all needed material things, so we have spiritual 
faculties to lay hold on God, and supply spiritual wants : through 
them we obtain all needed spiritual things." That we have both 
bodily senses and spiritual faculties, is doubtless true ; but whether 
either the one or the other obtain all needed things, is somewhat 
doubtful. I cannot tell how it is with mankind in Boston, for 1 
am not there; and this being a matter in which religious truth is 
concerned, Mr. Emerson will not allow me to receive instruction 
about it from any other soul ; but I see from my window a poor 
widow, with five children, who has bodily senses to lay hold on 
matter, and supply bodily wants ; yet in my opinion she has not 
obtained naturally all needed material things ; and if there be a 
truth which lies emphatically in the plane of her own conscious- 
ness, it is, that she is in great need of a cord of wood, and a 
barrel of flour, for her starving children. I know, also, a man, 
to whom God gave bodily senses to lay hold on matter, and supply 
bodily wants, who, by his drunkenness, has destroyed these bodily 
— — * ■ » 

* Parker's Discourse, 171. t Ibid, 33. 

66 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 11 

senses, and brought his family to utter destitution of all needed 
material things. From one cause or another, I find multitudes 
here in poverty and destitution, notwithstanding they have bodily 
senses. It is reported, also, that there is a poor house in Boston, 
and poverty in Ireland, and starvation in Madeira, and famine in 
the inundated provinces of France, and misery and destitution 
in London ; which, if true, completely overturns this beautiful 
theory. For, if, notwithstanding the possession of bodily senses, 
men do starve in this world for want of needful food and clothing, 
it is very possible that they may have spiritual faculties also, and 
yet not obtain through them all needed spiritual things. The 
second part of the theory is as baseless as the first. All men 
have spiritual faculties, and have not by them obtained all needed 
spiritual things. They have not in their own opinion, and surely 
they are competent judges of "what lies wholly in the plane of 
their own consciousness." 

In proof of the fact that mankind have not, in their own opinion, 
obtained all needed spiritual things by the use of their spiritual 
faculties, without the aid of external revelation, we appeal to all 
the religions of mankind, Heathen, Mahomedan, and Christian. 
Every one of these appeals to revelations from God. Every law- 
giver of note professed to have communication with heaven, Zoro- 
aster, Minos, Pythagoras, Solon, Lycurgus, Numa, Mahomed, 
down to the chief of the present revolution in China. "Whatever 
becomes of the real truth of these relations," says Strabo of those 
before his day, "it is certain that men did believe and think them 
truer If mankind had found the supply of all their spiritual 
wants within themselves, would they have clung in this way to the 
pretence of external revelations ? Is not the abundance of quack 
doctors conclusive proof of the existence of disease and the need of 
physicians ? 

Not only was the need of an external revelation of some sort 
acknowledged by all mankind, but the insufficiency of the pre- 
tended oracles which they enjoyed was deplored by the wisest 
part of them. "We never find men amidst the dim moonlight of 
tradition and the light of nature, vaunting the sufficiency of their 
inward light; it is only amidst the full blaze of noon-day Christianity, 
that philosophers can stand up and declare that they have no need 
\ of God's teaching. Had such men lived in Athens of old, they 
Would have found men possessed of spiritual faculties, and those of 

67 



12 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

no mean order, engaged in erecting an altar with this inscription, 
" To the Unknown God." One of the wisest of the heathen (Socrates) 
acknowledged that he could attain to no certainty respecting re- 
ligious truth or moral duty, in these memorable words, " We must 
of necessity wait, till some one from Him who careth for us, shall 
come and instruct us how we ought to behave towards God and 
toward man." The chief of the Academy, whose philosophy concern- 
ing the eternity of matter occupies a conspicuous place in the creed 
of American heathens, had no such confidence in the sufficiency of 
his own powers of discovering religious truth. "We cannot know 
of ourselves what petition will be pleasing to God, or what worship 
we should pay to him ; but it is necessary that a lawgiver should 
be sent from heaven to instruct us." " Oh how greatly do I long 
to see that man \" He further declares that " this lawgiver must be 
more than man, that he may teach us the things man can not know 
by his own nature."* Whether this want of a revelation from God, 
was real or merely imaginary, will appear by a brief review of the 
opinions and practices of those who never enjoyed, and of those 
who reject the light of God's revelation. 

They knew not God. If there is any article of religion funda- 
mental and indispensable to its very existence, it is the knowledge 
of God. It is admitted by Spiritualists that the spiritual faculties 
are designed to lay hold on God. It has been proved in the two 
former tracts of this series, and will be admitted by all but Atheists, 
that God is an intelligent being. And further it has been proved 
that God is not every thing and every body, but distinct from and 
supreme over all his works. Besides, in this country at least, there 
will not be much difference of opinion as to the propriety of a 
rational being adoring a brute, or a log of wood, or a lump of stone. 
It will be allowed that such stupidity shows both ignorance and 
folly. Now let us enquire into the knowledge of God possessed by 
the people who have no vision. 

The Chaldeans, the most ancient people of whom we have any 
account, and who had among them the immediate descendants of 
Noah, and whatever traditions of Noah's prophecies they preserved, 
were probably the best instructed of the heathen. Yet we find 
that they gave up the worship of God, adored the sun,, and moon, 
and stars of heaven, and in process of time degenerated still fur- 

* Plato. Republic. Books IV and VI., and Alcibiades II. 

68 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 13 

ther, and worshiped dumb idols. From this rock we were hewn ; 
the common names of the days of the week, and especially of the 
first day of the week, will for ever keep up a testimony to the 
necessity of that revelation which delivered our forefathers and 
us from burning our children upon the devil's altars on Sun-days. 

The Egyptians were reputed the most learned of mankind, and 
Egypt was considered the cradle of the arts and sciences. In her ex- 
isting monuments, hieroglyphic inscriptions, and tomb paintings, we 
have presented to us the materials for forming a more correct opinion 
of the religion and life of the Egyptians, than of any other ancient 
people ; and the investigation of these monuments is still adding 
to our information. Infidel writers and lecturers have not hesitated 
to allege that Moses merely taught the Israelites the religion of 
Egypt ; and some have had the hardihood to allege that the ten 
commandments are found written on the pyramids, as an argument 
against the necessity of a revelation. If the statement were true, 
it would by no means prove the conclusion. Egypt was favored 
with divine revelations to several of her kings, and enjoyed occa- 
sional visits from, or the permanent teachings of such prophets as 
Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, for four hundred years — a 
fact quite sufficient to account for her superiority to other heathen 
nations, as well as for the existence of some traces of true religion 
on her monuments. But the alleged fact is a falsehood. Some 
good moral precepts are found on the Egyptian monuments, but 
the ten commandments are not there. It may be charitably sup- 
posed that those who allege the contrary never learned the ten 
commandments, or have forgotten them, else they would have 
remembered that the first commandment is, " Thou shalt have no 
other gods before me f and that the second is, " Thou shalt not 
make unto thee any graven image," etc., and would have paused 
before alleging that these commands were engraved upon the very 
temples of idols, and by the priests of the birds and beasts and 
creeping things which they adored. It is very doubtful if they 
believed in the existence of one supreme God, as most of the 
heathen did ; but if they did, "they did not under any form, sym- 
bol, or hieroglyphic, represent the idea of the unity of God/' as is 
fully proved by Wilkinson.* On the contrary, the monuments con- 
firm the satirical sketch of the poet,f as to the "monsters mad Egypt 

* Manners and Customs of Ancient Egyptians, 2d series, vol. ii., page 176, et passim. 
t Juvenal, Satire XV. 

69 



14 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

worshiped : here a sea-fish, there a river-fish ; whole towns adore 
a dog. This place fears an ibis saturated with serpents ; that adores 
a crocodile. It is a sin to violate a leek or onion, or break them 
with a bite." Cruel wars were waged between different towns, as 
Plutarch tells us, because the people of Cynopolis would eat a 
fish held sacred by the citizens of Latopolis. Bulls, and dogs, and 
cats, and rats, and reptiles, and dung beetles, were devoutly 
adored by the learned Egyptians. A Roman soldier, who had acci- 
dentally killed one of their gods, a cat, was put to death for sacri- 
lege.* Whenever a dog died, every person in the house went 
into mourning, and fasted till night. So low had the " great, the 
mighty and transcendent soul/' been degraded, that there is a 
picture extant of one of the kings of Egypt worshiping his own 
coffin ! Such is man's knowledge of God without a revelation from 
Him. 

The Greeks, from their early intercourse with Egypt, borrowed 
from them most of their religion; but by later connections with 
the Hebrews about the time of Aristotle and Alexander, they 
gathered a few grains of truth to throw into the heap of error. 
After the translation of the Scriptures into Greek, in the reign of 
Ptolemy Philadelphus, any of their philosophers who desired, might 
easily have learned the knowledge of the true God. But before this 
period we find little or no sense or truth in their religion. And 
the same remarks will apply to the Romans. Their gods were as 
detestable as they were numerous. Hesiod tells us they had thirty 
thousand. Temples were erected to all the passions, fears, dis- 
eases, to which humanity is subject. Their supreme god Jupiter 
was an adulterer, Mars a murderer, Mercury a fchief, Bacchus a 
drunkard, Venus a harlot, and they attributed other crimes to their 
gods too horrible to be mentioned. Such gods were worshiped 
with appropriate ceremonies, of lust, drunkenness, and bloodshed. 
Their most sacred mysteries, carried on under the patronage of 
these licentious deities, were so abominable and infamous, that it 
was found necessary for the preservation of any remnant of good 
order, to prohibit them. 

It may be supposed that the human race is grown wiser now 
than in the days of Socrates and Cicero, and that such abomina- 
tions are no longer possible. Turn your eyes, then, to India, and 
behold one hundred and fifty millions of rational beings, possessed 

„ n * Diodorus Siculue, Book 1» 

70 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 15 

of " spiritual faculties," ** insight," and " the religious sentiment," 
worshipping three hundred and thirty millions of gods, in the 
forms of hills and trees, and rivers, and rocks, elephants, tigers, 
monkeys and rats, crocodiles, serpents, beetles and ants, and 
monsters like to nothing in heaven or earth, or under the earth. 
Take one specimen of all. There is "the lord of the world," 
Juggernath. " When you think of the monster block of the idol, 
with its frightfully grim and distorted visage, so justly styled the 
Moloch of the East, sitting enthroned amid thousands of massive 
sculptures, the representative emblems of that cruelty and vice 
which constitute the very essence of his worship ; when you think 
of the countless multitudes that annually congregate there, from 
all parts of India, many of them measuring the whole distance of 
their weary pilgrimage with their own bodies ; when you think of 
the merit-earning assiduities constantly practised by crowds of 
devotees and religious mendicants, around the holy city: some 
remaining all day with their head on the ground, and their feet in 
the air ; others with their bodies entirely covered with earth ; some 
cramming their eyes with mud, and their mouths with straw, 
while others lie extended in a puddle of water ; here one man lying 
with his foot tied to his neck, another with a pot of fire on his 
breast, a third enveloped in a network of ropes ; — when, besides 
these self-inflicted torments, you think of the frightful amount of 
involuntary suffering and wretchedness arising from the exhaustion 
of toilsome pilgrimages, the cravings of famine, and the scourgings 
of pestilence ; — when you think of the day of the high festival — 
how the horrid king is dragged forth from his temple, and mounted 
on his lofty car, in the presence of hundreds of thousands, that 
cause the very earth to shake with shouts of < Victory to Jugger- 
nath, our Lord ;' — how the officiating high priest, stationed in front 
of the elevated idol, commences the public service by a loathsome 
pantomimic exhibition, accompanied with the utterance of filthy, 
blasphemous songs, to which the vast multitude at intervals re- 
spond, not in the strains of tuneful melody, but in loud yells of 
approbation, united with a kind of hissing applause ; — when you 
think of the carnage that ensues, in the name of sacred offering — 
how, as the ponderous machine rolls on, grating harsh thunder, 
one and another of the more enthusiastic devotees throw themselves 
beneath the wheels, and are instantly crushed to pieces, the infatu- 

71 



16 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

ated victims of hellish superstition ; — when you think of the 
numerous Golgothas that bestud the neighboring plain, where the 
dogs, jackals and vultures seem to live on human prey; and of those 
bleak and barren sands that are for ever whitened with the skulls 
and bones of deluded pilgrims which lie bleaching in the sun,"* — 
you will be able to see an awful force of meaning in the words of 
our text, and to realize more fully the necessity of a revelation 
from God, for the very preservation of animal life to man. Lite- 
rally, where there is no vision the people perish. Man doth not 
live by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth from the 
mouth of God. 

Take one other illustration of ignorance of God in the minds 
of those who close their eyes against the light of revelation — the 
heathen of Europe and America, possessing that inspiration which 
is wide as the world, looking abroad upon all the glorious works 
of the great Creator, and declaring there is no God. On the other 
hand, we have men, possessed of this same inspiration, deifying 
every thing, and outrunning even the Hindoos in the multitude of 
their divinities, declaring that every stick, and stone, and serpent, 
and snail that crawls on the earth is God, and making professions 
of holding spiritual communings with them all. To crown the 
monument of folly, the chief of the Positive Philosophy comes forth 
with a revelation from his spiritual faculties, in which by way of 
improving on the proverb "both are best," and of being sure of the 
truth, he unites Atheism, and Pantheism, and Idolatry — teaches his 
child to worship idols, the youth to believe in one God, and himself 
and other full-grown men to adore the " resultant of all the forces 
capable of voluntarily contributing to the perfectioning of the 
universe, not forgetting his worthy friends, the animals." To such 
darkness are men justly condemned who shut their eyes against 
the light of God's revelation. Where there is no vision the people 
perish intellectually. He who turns away his ears from the truth, 
must be turned unto fables. " Hear ye and give ear, be not proud, 
for the Lord hath spoken. Give glory to the Lord your God before 
he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark 
mountains, and while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow 
of death, and make it gross darkness." 

* Duff's India, p. 222 

72 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 17 

Without a revelation from God, the mind of man can attain to 
no certainty regarding the most important of all his interests, the 
destiny of his immortal soul. He knows well— for every sickness, 
and sorrow, and calamity declares it, and quick returning troubles 
will not allow him to forget— that the Ruler of the world is 
offended with him ; and conscience tells him why. The sense of 
guilt is common to the human race. This is, indeed, " the inspira- 
tion which knows no sect, no country, no religion, no age; which is 
as wide as humanity." Reason asks herself, Will God be always 
thus angry with me ? Shall I ever feel these pangs of remorse for 
my sins ? Will misery follow me for ever, as I see and feel that it 
does here ? Or shall my soul exist under God's frowns, or perish 
under his just sentence, even as my body perishes? Does the 
grave hide for ever all that I loved? Have they ceased to be? 
Shall we ever meet again? Or must I say, ''Farewell, farewell! 
An eternal farewell !" And in a few days myself also cease to be ? 
The only answer reason gives, is — solemn silence. 

The wisest of men could not tell. Who has not dropped a tear 
over the dying words of Socrates, " I am going out of the world, 
and you are to continue in it, but which of us has the better part 
is a secret to every one but God." Cicero contended for the im- 
mortality of the soul against the multitudes of philosophers who 
denied it in his day; yet, after recounting their various opinions, 
he is obliged to say, "Which of these is true, God alone knows; 
and which is most probable, a very great question."* And Seneca, 
on a review of this subject, says: "Immortality, however desir- 
able, was rather promised than proved by these great men." t 

The multitude had but two ideas on the subject. Either their 
ghosts should wander eternally in the land of shadows, or else they 
would pass into a succession of other bodies, of animals or men. 
From the nakedness and desolation of unclothed spirit, and the 
possibility which this notion held out of some close contact 
with a holy and just judge, the soul shrank back to the hope of 
the metempsychosis, and hoped rather to dwell in the body of a 
brute, than be utterly unclothed and mingle with spirits. This is 
the delusion cherished by the people of India and many other 
lands to this day. How unsatisfactory to the dying sinner this 



* Tusc. Qusest, lib. 1. t Seneca, Bp. 102. 



18 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

uncertainty. " Tell me," said a wealthy Hindoo, who had given all 
his wealth to the Brahmins who surrounded his dying bed, that 
they might obtain pardon for his sins, " Tell me what will become 
of my soul when I die V " Your soul will go into the body of a 
holy cow." "And after that 2" '* It will pass into the body of the 
divine peacock" "And after that ?" " It will pass into a flower." 
" Tell me, oh ! tell me," cried the dying man, " where will it go 
last of all ?" Where will it go last of all ? Aye, that is the ques- 
tion reason can not answer. 

The rejectors of the Bible here, are as uncertain on this all-im- 
portant subject, as the heathen of India. They have every variety 
of oracles, and conjectures, and suppositions about the other world; 
but for their guesses they offer no proof. When they give us their 
oracles as if they were known truths, we are compelled to ask, 
How do you know ? The only thing in which they are agreed among 
themselves, is in denying the resurrection of the body — a point 
which they gathered from their heathen classics. A poor, empty, 
naked, shivering, table-rapping spirit, obliged to fly over the world 
at the sigh of any silly sewing girl, or the bidding of some brazen- 
faced strumpet, is all that ever shall exist of Washington or New- 
ton, in the scheme of one class of Bible rejectors. To obtain rest 
from such a doom, others fly to the eternal tomb, and inform us 
that the soul is simply an acting of the brain, and when the brain 
ceases to act, the soul ceases also. Let us eat and drink, for 
to-morrow we die. But even this hog philosophy is reasonable, 
compared with the dogma of the large majority, that a man may 
blaspheme, swear, lie, steal, murder, and commit adultery, and go 
straight to heaven — that " many a swarthy Indian who bowed down 
to wood and stone — many a grim-faced Calmuck who worshiped 
the great god of storms — many a Grecian peasant who did homage 
to Phoebus Apollo when the sun rose or went down — many a 
savage, his hands smeared all over with human sacrifice — shall 
sit down with Moses and Jesus in the kingdom of God."* To such 
wild unreason does the mind of man descend when it rejects the 
Bible. 

Life and immortality are brought to light by the Gospel. Where 
there is no vision, hope perishes. The only plausible creed for him 



rj a * Parker's Discourse, 83. 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 19 

who rejects it, is the eternal tomb, and the heart-chilling inscrip- 
tion : " Death is an eternal sleep I" 

Without a revelation from God, men are as ignorant how to live, 
as how to die. They have no rule of life having either truth or 
authority to direct them. Our Anglo Saxon ancestors, of the purity 
of whose blood we are so proud, trusted to their magical incanta- 
tions for the cure of diseases, for the success of their tillage, for 
the discovery of lost property, for uncharming cattle and the pre- 
vention of casualties. One day was useful for all things ; another, 
though good to tame animals, was baleful to sow seed. One day 
was favorable to the commencement of business, another to let 
blood, and others wore a forbidding aspect to these and other 
things. On this day they were to buy, on a second to sell, on a 
third to hunt, on a fourth to do nothing. If a child was born on 
such a day, it would live ; if on another, its life would be sickly ; if 
on another, it would perish early.* Their descendants who reject 
the Bible are fully as superstitious. Astrologers, and Mediums, 
and Clairvoyants, in multitudes, find a profitable trade among them ; 
and one prominent anti-Bible lecturer will cure you of any disease 
you have, if you will only enclose, in a letter, a lock of hair from 
the right temple, and — a — Five Dollar Bill. 

The precepts of even the wisest men, and the laws of the best 
regulated states, commanded or approved of vice. In Babylon 
prostitution was compulsory on every female. The Carthaginian 
law required human sacrifices. When Agathoclas besieged Car- 
thage, two hundred children, of the most noble families, were mur- 
dered by the command of the senate, and three hundred citizens 
voluntarily sacrificed themselves to Saturn, f The laws of Sparta 
required theft, and the murder of unhealthy children. Those of 
ancient Rome allowed parents the power of killing their children, 
if they pleased. At Athens, the capital of heathen literature and 
philosophy, it was enacted "that infants which appeared to be 
maimed should be either killed or exposed.":}: 

Plato, dissatisfied with the constitution, made a scheme of one 
much better, which he has left us in his Republic. In this great 
advance of society, this heathen millennium, we find that there was 



* Turner's Anglo Saxons, b. vii, chap. 13. X Aristotle, Polit. lib. vii, chap. 17. 
t Diodorus Siculus, h. xx, chap. 14. 

75 



20 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

to be a community of women and of property, just as among our 
modern heathens. Women's rights were to be maintained by 
having the women trained to war. Children were still to be mur- 
dered, if convenience called for it. And the young children were 
to be led to battle at a safe distance, "that the young whelps might 
early scent carnage, and be inured to slaughter." 
^ The teachings of all these philosophers were immoral. He may 
lie, says Plato, who knows how to do it. Pride and the love of 
popular applause were esteemed the best motives to virtue. Pro- 
fane swearing was commanded by the example of all their best 
writers and moralists. Oaths are frequent in the writings of 
Plato and Seneca. The gratification of the sensual appetites was 
openly taught. Anstippus taught that a wise man might steal and 
commit adultery, when he could. Unnatural crimes were vindi- 
cated. The last dread crime— suicide— was pleaded for by Cicero 
and Seneca as the mark of a hero, and Demosthenes, Cato, Brutus, 
and Cassius, carried the means of self-destruction about them, that 
they might not fall alive into the hands of their enemies. 

The lives of these wisest of the heathen corresponded to their 
teachings, so far at least as vice was concerned. The most noto- 
rious vices, and even unnatural crimes, were practiced by them. 
The reader of the classics does not need to be reminded that such 
vices are lauded in the poems of Ovid, and Horace, and Virgil ; 
that the poets were rewarded and honored for songs which would 
not be tolerated for a moment in the vilest theater of New York. 
What, then, must the lives of the vulgar have been ? In the very 
height of Koman civilization, Trajan caused ten thousand men to 
hew each other to pieces for the amusement of the Roman people; 
and noble ladies feasted their eyes on the spectacle. In the Augus- 
tan age, when the invincible armies of Rome gave law to half the 
world, fathers were in the habit of mutilating their sons rather 
than see them subjected to the slavery and terrible despotism of 
their officers. What, then, must the state of the people of the van- 
quished countries have been ? Whole provinces were frequently 
given over to fire and sword by generals, not reputed inhuman ; and 
such was the progress of war and anarchy, and their never-failing 
accompaniments, famine and pestilence, that in the reign of Gal- 
lienus, large cities were left utterly desolate, the public roads 
became unsafe from immense packs of wolves, and it was computed 
that one-half of the human race perished. This was just before the 
76 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 21 

toleration of Christianity. God would allow the wisest and bravest 
of mankind to try the experiment of neglecting his gospel and 
living without his revelation, until all mankind might be convinced 
that such a course is suicidal to nations. " Where there is no 
vision, the people perish/' 

A brief reference to the codes of morals which the opposers of 
the Bible would substitute for it in Christian lands, shall conclude 
our proof of the necessity of such a revelation of God's law to man, 
as shall guide his life to peace and happiness. 

The family is the basis of the commonwealth. Destroy family 
confidence and family government, and you destroy society, subvert 
civil government, and bring destruction on the human race. 
Mankind are so generally agreed on this subject, that adultery, 
even among heathens, is regarded and punished as a crime. 
The whole school of infidel writers and anti-Bible lecturers, male 
and female, apologize for, and vindicate this crime. Lord Herbert, 
the first of the English Deists, taught that the indulgence of lust 
and anger is no more to be blamed than the thirst occasioned by 
the dropsy, or the drowsiness produced by lethargy. Mr. Hobbes 
asserted that every man has a right to all things, and may law- 
fully get them if he can. Bolingbroke taught that man is merely 
a superior animal, which is just the modern development theory, 
and that his chief end is to gratify the appetites and inclinations 
of the flesh. Hume, whose argument against miracles is so fre- 
quently in the mouths of American Infidels, taught that adultery 
must be practiced, if men would obtain all the advantages of life, 
and that if practiced frequently, it would by degrees come to be 
thought no crime at all — a prediction as true as holy writ, the ful- 
filment of which hundreds of the citizens of Cincinnati can attest, 
who have heard a lecturer publicly denounce the Bible as an im- 
moral book, and in the same address declare that if a woman was 
married to a man, in her opinion of inferior development, it was 
her duty to leave him and live with another. This duty is by no 
means neglected, as the numerous divorces, spiritual marriages, 
separations, and elopements among this class of persons, testify. 
Voltaire held that it was not agreeable to policy to regard it as a 
vice in a moral sense. Rousseau, a liar, a thief, and a debauched 
profligate, according to his own printed " Confessions," held the same 
high opinion of the inner light as our American Spiritualists. "I 
have only to consult myself," said he, "concerning what I do. All 

77 



22 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

that I feel to be right, is right."* In fact, the purport of this inner 
light doctrine, is exactly as Rousseau expressed it, and amounts 
simply to this, Do what you like. 

On this lawless principle these men acted. Take, for example, 
the chief saint on the calendar of American Infidelity, whose birth- 
day is annually celebrated by a high festival in this city, and in 
whose honor hundreds of men, who would like to be reputed decent 
citizens, parade our streets in solemn procession — Thomas Paine — 
the author of " The Age of Reason," as his character is depicted by 
one who was his helper in the work of blaspheming God and 
seducing men, and whose testimony, therefore, in the eyes of an 
infidel, is unimpeachable — "William Carver. 

" Mr. Thomas Paine : I received your letter, dated the 25 ult., in 
answer to mine, dated November 21, and after minutely examining 
its contents, I found that you had taken to the pitiful subterfuge of 
lying for your defence. You say that you paid me four dollars per 
week for your board and lodging, during the time you were with me, 
prior to the first of June last ; which was the day that I went up, by 
your order, to bring you to York, from New Rochelle. It is fortunate 
for me that I have a living evidence that saw you give me five guineas, 
and no more, in my shop, at your departure at that time; but you 
said you would have given me more, but that you had no more with 
you at present. You say, also, that you found your own liquors dur- 
ing the time you boarded with me; but you should have said, 'I found 
only a small part of the liquor I drank during my stay with you ; 
this part I purchased of John Fellows, which was a demi-john of 
brandy, containing four gallons, and this did not serve you three 
weeks.' This can be proved, and I mean not to say any thing I cannot 
prove, for I hold truth as a precious jewel. It is a well known fact 
that you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my expense, during 
the different times you boarded with me; the demi-john above men- 
tioned excepted, and the last fourteen weeks you were sick. Is not 
this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper." * * * * "I have 
often wondered that a French woman and three children should leave 
France and all their connections, to follow Thomas Paine to America. 
Suppose I were to go to my native country, England, and take another 
man's wife and three children of his, and leave my wife and children 
in this country. What would be the natural conclusion in the minds 
of the people, but that there was some criminal connection between 
the woman and myself?" f 

Such is the morality of those who denounce the Bible as an im- 

* Home's Introduction to the Scriptures, Vol. I, p. 25. 

f Printed repeatedly in the New York newspapers, and given entire in the Report of 
the discussion between Dr. Berg and Mr. Barker. W. S. Young, Philadelphia, 1854. 

78 



HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 23 

moral book, and blaspheme the God of the Bible as too unholy to 
be reverenced or adored ! " But beloved, remember ye the words 
which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, 
who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they 
who separate themselves, seDSual, having not the spirit." In the 
Free Love Institute about to be established in our vicinity, we shall 
have the full development of these filthy principles and practices. 

Let fathers and husbands look to this matter. Especially let 
ungodly men set to work and devise some law of man capable of 
binding those who renounce the law of God, and with it all human 
authority. For there can be no law of man, unless there is a 
revealed law of God. "What right," says the Pantheist, the Fou- 
rierist, the Spiritualist, the Atheist, " what right have you to com- 
mand me? Right and wrong are only matters of feeling, and 
your feelings are no rule to me. The will of the majority is only 
the law of might, and if I can evade it, or overcome it, my will is 
as good as theirs. Oaths are only an idle superstition — there is no 
judge, no judgment, no punishment for the false swearer." Take 
away the moral sanction of law, and the sacredness of oaths, and 
what basis have you left for any government, save the point of the 
bayonet? Take away the revealed law of God, and you leave not 
a vestige of any authority to any human law. " We hold these 
truths to be self-evident," said the immortal framers of the basis of 
the American Confederation, "that all men are created equal; that 
they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights." 
It was well said. The Rights of God, are the only basis of the 
Rights of Man. 

Once in modern times, the rejectors of the Bible had opportunity 
to try the experiment of ruling a people on a large scale, and giving 
the world a specimen of an infidel republic. You have heard one 
of them here express his admiration of that government, and 
declare his intention to present a public vindication of it. Of 
course, as soon as practicable, that which they admire they will 
imitate, and the scenes of Paris and Lyons will be re-enacted 
in Louisville and Cincinnati. Our Bibles will be collected and 
burned on a dung heap. Death will be declared an eternal sleep. 
God will be declared a fiction. Religious worship will be re- 
nounced ; the Sabbath abolished ; and a prostitute, crowned with 
garlands, will receive the adorations of the Mayors and Council- 

79 



24 HAVE WE ANY NEED OF THE BIBLE. 

men of Cincinnati and Newport. The reign of terror will com- 
mence. The guillotine shall take its place on the Fifth Street 
Market place. Proscription will follow proscription. Women will 
denounce their husbands, and children their parents, as bad 
citizens, and lead them to the axe ; and well dressed ladies, filled 
with savage ferocity, will seize the mangled bodies of their mur- 
dered countrymen between their teeth. The Licking will be 
choked with the bodies of men, and the Ohio dyed with their blood ; 
and those whose infancy had sheltered them from the fire of the 
rabble soldiery, be bayoneted as they cling to the knees of their 
destroyers.* The common doom of man commuted for the violence 
of the sword, the bayonet, the sucking boat, and the guillotine; 
the knell of the nation tolled, and the world summoned to its exe- 
cution and funeral, will need no preacher to expound the text, 
Where there is no vision the people perish. 

* Home's Introduction to the Scriptures, vol. i, p. 26 ; where ample references to 
cotemporary French writers are given. 



No. 26. 

WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 



" The salutation of me Paul, with mine own hand : which is the 
token in every epistle — so I write. The grace of our Lord 
Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen." — 2 Thess. 3: 17. 

Religion rests not on dogmas, but on a number of great facts. 
In the last Tract we found one of these to be, that people des- 
titute of a revelation of God's will, ever have been, and now are 
ignorant, miserable and wicked. If it were at all needful, we 
might go on to show, that there are people in the world, who 
have decent clothing and comfortable houses — work well-tilled 
farms with sub-soil ploughs and McCormick reapers — yoke pow- 
erful streams to the mill wheel, and harness the iron horse to 
the market wagon — career their floating palaces up the opposing 
floods — line their coasts with flocks of white winged schooners, 
and show their flags on every coast of earth — invent and make 
every thing that man will buy, from the brass button, dear to 
the barbarian, to the folio of the philosopher — erect churches in 
all their towns, schools in every village — make their blacksmiths 
more learned than the priests of Egypt, their Sabbath scholars 
wiser than the philosophers of Greece, and even the criminals 
in their jails, more decent characters than the sages, heroes? and 
gods of the lands without the Bible ; and that these people are 
the people who possess a Book, which they think contains a reve- 
lation from God, teaching them how to live well — which Book 
they call the Bible. This is the book about which we make our 
present inquiry, Who wrote it? 

The fact being utterly undeniable, that these blessings are 
found among the people who possess the Bible, and only among 
them, we at once, and summarily, dismiss the arrogant falsehood 
presented to prevent any inquiry about the Book, namely, that 
"Christianity is just like any other superstition, and its sacred 
books like the impositions of Chinese, Indian, or Mohammedan 
impostors. They too are religious, and have their sacred books 
which they believe to be divine." A profound generalization in- 
deed! Is a peach tree just like a horse-chesnut, or a scrub-oak, 
or a honey-locust ? They are all trees, and have leaves on them. 
The Bible is just as like the Yi King, or the Vedas, or the Koran, 
6 81 



2 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

as a Christian American or Briton is like a Chinaman, a Turk, 
or a Hindoo. But it is too absurd to begin any discussion with 
these learned Thebans of the relative merits of the Bible as com- 
pared with the Vedas, and the Chinese Classics, of which they 
have never read a single page. Let them stick to what they 
pretend to know. 

The Bible is a great fact in the world's history, known alike 
to the prince and the peasant, the simple and the sage. It is 
perused with pleasure by the child, and pondered with patience 
by the philosopher. Its psalms are carolled on the school green, 
cheer the chamber of sickness, are chanted by the mother over 
her cradle, by the orphan over the tomb. Here — thousands of 
miles away from the land of its birth — in a world undiscovered 
for centuries after it was finished, in a language unknown alike 
at Athens and Jerusalem, it rules as lovingly and as powerfully 
as in its native soil. To show that its power is not derived from 
race or clime, it converts the Sandwich Islands into a civilized 
nation, and transforms the New Zealand cannibal into a British 
ship-owner, the Indian warrior into an American Editor, and 
the Negro slave, into the President of a free African Kepublic. 
It does not look as if it had finished its course and ceased from 
its triumphs. Translated into the hundred and fifty languages 
spoken by nine hundred millions of men, carried by ten thousand 
heralds to every corner of the globe, sustained by the cheerful 
contributions and fervent prayers of hundreds of thousands of 
ardent disciples, it is still going forth conquering and to con- 
quer. Is there any other book so generally read, so greatly 
loved, so zealously propagated, so widely diffused, so uniform in 
its results, and so powerful and blessed in its influences ? Do 
you know any? If you can not name any book, no, nor any 
thousand books, which in these respects equal the Bible, — then 
it stands out clear and distinct, and separate from all other 
authorship ; and with an increased emphasis comes our question : 
Who wrote it? 

With all these palpable facts in view, to come to the examina- 
tion of this question as if we knew nothing about them, or as if 
knowing them well, we cared nothing at all about them, and 
were determined to deny them their natural influence in begetting 
within us a very strong presumption in favor of its divine origin, 
were to declare that our heads and hearts were alike closed against 
82 



WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. €> 

light and love. But to enter on this inquiry into the origin of 
the Book which has produced such results, with a preconceived 
opinion that it must be a forgery and an imposition, the fruit 
of a depraved heart and a lying tongue, implies so much home- 
born deceit, that till the heart capable of such a prejudice be 
completely changed, no reasoning can have any solid fulcrum 
of truth or goodness to rest on. It is sheer folly to talk of one's 
being wholly unprejudiced in such an inquiry. No man ever was 
or could be so. As his sympathies are towards goodness and 
virtue, and the happiness of mankind, or towards pride and deceit, 
and selfishness, and savageness, so will his prejudices be for or 
against the Bible. 

On looking at the Bible, we find it composed of a number of 
separate treatises, written by different writers, at various times ; 
some parts fifteen hundred years before the others. We find, 
also, that it treats of the very, beginning of the world before man 
was made, and of other matters of which we have no other 
authentic history to compare with it. Again, we find portions 
which treat of events connected in a thousand places with the 
affairs of the Roman Empire, of which we have, several credible 
histories. Now, there are two modes of investigation open to 
us, the dogmatic and the inductive. We may take either. We 
may construct for ourselves, from the most flimsy suppositions, 
a metaphysical balloon, inflated with self-conceit into the rotun- 
dity of a cosmogony, according to which, in our opinion, the 
world should have been made, and we may paint it over with 
the figures of the various animals and noble savages which 
ought to have sprung up out of its fornea, and we may stripe 
its history to suit our notions of the progress of such a world, 
and soaring high into the clouds, after a little preliminary 
amusement in the discovery of eternal red hot fire-mists and 
condensing comets, and so forth, we may come down upon the 
summit of some of this earth's mountains, say Ararat, and take 
a survey of the Bible process of world making. Finding that 
the Creator of the world had to make his materials — a business 
in which no other world maker ever did engage — and further, 
that God's plan of making it by no means corresponds to our 
patent process, and that the article is not at all like what we 
intend to produce when we go into the business, and that it does 
not work according to our expectations, we can denounce the 
83 



4 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

•whole as a very mean affair, and the Book which describes it 
as not worth reading. If one wants some new subject for mer- 
riment, and does not mind making a fool of himself, and ia 
not to be terrified by old-fashioned notions about God Almighty, 
and is perfectly confident that God can tell him nothing that he 
does not know better already, and merely wants to see whether 
he is not trying to pass off old fables upon wide awake people 
for facts — this dogmatic plan will suit him. 

On the other hand, if one is tolerably convinced that he does 
not know every thing, and probably not much of the world he 
lives in, less of its history, and nothing at all about the best 
way of making it, and that when it needs mending it will not be 
Bent to his workshop — that he knows nothing about what hap- 
pened before he was born unless what other people tell him, and 
that, though men do err, yet all men are not liars — that all the 
blessings of education, civilization, law and liberty, from the penny 
primer to the Constitution of the United States, came to him 
solely through the channel of abundant, reliable testimony — that 
the only way in which he can ever know any thing beyond hi? 
eyesight with certainty, is to gather testimony about it, and com- 
pare the evidence, and enquire into the character of the wit- 
nesses — that when one has done so, he becomes so satisfied of 
the truth of the report that he would rather risk his life upon 
it than upon the certainty of any mathematical problem, or of 
any scientific truth, whatever — that ninety-nine out of every hun 
dred citizens of the United States are a thousand times more cer- 
tain that the Yankees whipped the British in 1776, declared the 
Colonies free and independent States, and made Washington Presi- 
dent, than they ever will be that all bodies attract each other 
directly as their mass, and inversely as the squares of their dis- 
tances, that the sum of the angles of any triangle is equal to two 
right angles, or that the earth is nearer the sun in winter than in 
summer — that certainty about the Bible History is just as attain- 
able and just as reliable as certainty about American history, if 
he will seek it in the same way — and if he is really desirous to 
know how this Book was written, which alone in the world teaches 
men how to obtain peace with God, how to live well, and how to 
die with a firm and joyful hope of a resurrection to life eternal, 
and what part of it is easiest to prove either true or false — then 
he will take the inductive mode. He will begin at the present 
84 



WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 5 

time, and trace the history up to the times in which the Book was 
written. He will ascertain what he can about that part of it 
which was last written — the New Testament — and begin with that 
part of it which lies nearest him — the Epistles. By the com- 
parison of the documents themselves, with all kinds of history and 
monuments which throw light on the period, he will try to ascer- 
tain whether they are genuine or not. And from one well ascer- 
tained position he will proceed to another, until he has traversed 
the whole ground of the genuineness of the writings, the truth of 
the story, and the divine authority of the doctrine. 

This is my plan of investigation. One thing at a time, and the 
nearest first. It is not worth while to inquire whether it be in- 
spired by God, if it be really a forgery of impostors — nor whether 
the Gospel story is worthy of credit, if the only book which con- 
tains it be a religious novel of the third or fourth century ? We 
dismiss then the questions of the Inspiration, or even the truth of 
the New Testament, till we have ascertained its authors. We 
take up the Book, and find that it purports to be a relation of the 
planting of the Church of Christ, of its laws and ordinances, and 
of the life, death and resurrection of its Founder, written by eight 
of his companions, at various periods and places, towards the close 
of the first century. There is a general opinion among all Chris- 
tians that the Book was composed then, and by these persons. We 
want to know why they think so ? In short, is it a genuine book, 
or merely a collection of myths with the apostles' names appended 
to them by some lying monks ? Is it a fact, or a forgery ? 

In any historical inquiry, we want some fixed point of time from 
which to take our departure ; and in this case we want to know if 
there is any period of antiquity in which undeniably this Book was 
in existence, and received as genuine by Christian societies. For 
I will not suppose my readers as ignorant as some of those infidels 
who allege that it was made by the Bible Society. It used to be 
the fashion with those of them who pretended to learning, to affirm, 
that it was made by the Council of Laodicea, in A. D. 364 ; be- 
cause, in order to guard the churches against spurious epistles and 
gospels, that Council published a list of those which the apostles 
did actually write, which thenceforth were generally bound in 
one volume. 

. Before that time, the four gospels were always bound in one 
volume and called the Gospel. The Acts of the Apostles and the 

85 



6 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Epistles universally and undoubtedly known to be written by 
Paul, to the Churches of Thessalonica, Galatia, Rome, Corinth, 
Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, and to Philemon, a well known resi- 
dent of that city — and those to Timothy and Titus, missionaries 
of world-wide celebrity — the First General Epistle of Peter, and 
the First General Epistle of John, which were at once widely 
circulated to check prevailing heresies — were bound in another 
volume and called "The Apostle. ;; The Epistle to the Hebrews, 
being general, and anonymous, i. e., not bearing the name of any 
particular church, or person, to whom any body who merely 
looked at it could refer for proof of its genuineness, as in the case 
of the other Epistles — was not so soon known by the European 
churches to be written by Paul. The General Epistles of James, 
Jude, and the Second General Epistle of Peter, lying under the 
same difficulty, and besides being very disagreeable to easy going 
Christians from their sharp rebukes of hypocrisy — the Second and 
Third Epistles of John, from their brevity — and the Revelation of 
'John, being one of the last written of all the books of the New 
Testament, and the most mysterious — were not so generally known 
beyond the churches where the originals were deposited, until the 
other two collections had been formed. They were accordingly 
kept as separate books, and sometimes bound up in a third volume 
of Apostolical writings. Besides these, at the time of the Council 
of Laodicea, and for a long time before, other books written by 
Barnabas, Clement, Polycarp, and other companions and disciples 
of the apostles, and forged gospels and epistles attributed by here- 
tics to the apostles, were circulated through the churches, and read 
by Christians. The Council of Laodicea did, what many learned 
men had done before them; it investigated the evidence upon which 
any of these books was attributed to an apostle — and finding evi- 
dence to satisfy them, that the gospel written by Luke had the 
sanction of the apostle Paul, that the gospel of Mark was revised 
by the apostle Peter, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was written 
by Paul, and the other epistles by John, Jude, James, and Peter, 
respectively, and not finding evidence to satisfy them about the 
Revelation of John, they expressed their opinion, and the grounds 
of it, for the information of the world.* Into these reasons we 
will hereafter inquire, for our faith in Holy Scripture does not rest 

* ,Acta Coneil, sub voce Laodicea, Canon iy. Lardner yi. : p. 388. 

86 



WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 7 

on their canons. We are not now asking what they fhouglxt but 
what they did, and we find that they did criticise certain books, 
reported to be written by the apostles of Jesus Christ some three 
hundred years before, approve some, and reject others as spurious, 
and publish a list of those they thought genuine. Infidels admit 
this, and on the strength of it long asserted that the Council of 
Laodicea made the New Testatament. At length they became 
ashamed of the stupid absurdity of alleging that men could 
criticise the claims, and catalogue the names of books before they 
were written ; and they now shift back the writing — or the authen- 
tication of the New Testament — for they are not quite sure which, 
though the majority incline to the furmer — to the Emperor Con- 
stantine and the Council of Nice, which met in the year 325. 
Why they have fixed on the Council of Nice is more than I can 
tell. They might as well say the Council of Trent, or the West- 
minster Assembty, either of which had just as much to do with 
the Canon of Scripture. However, on some vague hearsay that 
the Council of Nice and the Emperor Constantine made the Bible, 
hundreds in this city are now risking the salvation of their 
souls. 

We have in this assertion, nevertheless, as many facts admitted 
as will serve our present purpose. There did exist, then, undenia- 
bly, in the year 325, large numbers of Christian churches in the 
Roman Empire, sufficiently numerous to make it politic, in the 
opinion of infidels, for a candidate for the empire to profess Chris- 
tianity ; sufficiently powerful to secure his success, notwithstand- 
ing the desperate struggles of the heathen party; and sufficiently 
religious, or if you like superstitious, to make it politic for an 
emperor and his politicians to give up the senate, the court, the 
camp, the chase and the theater, and weary themselves with long 
prayers and longer speeches of preachers about Bible religion. 
Now that is certainly a remarkable fact, and all the more remark- 
able if we now inquire, How came it so ? For these men, 
preachers, prince, and people, were brought up to worship Jupiter 
and the thirty thousand god$ of Olympus, after the heathen 
fashion, and leave the care of religion to heathen priests, who 
never troubled their heads about books or doctrines after they 
had offered their sacrifices. In all the records of the world, there 
is no instance of a general council of heathen priests to settle the 
religion of their people. How happens it then that the human race 

87 



8 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

has of a sudden waked up to such a strange sense of the folly of 
idolatry and the value of religion? The Council of Nice and 
the Emperor Constantine and his councilors making a Bible, is 
a proof of a wonderful revolution in the world's religion — a phe- 
nomenon far more surprising than if the Secretaries of State, and 
the Senate, and President Pierce, should leave the Capitol and 
post off to Boston, to attend the meetings of a Methodist Confer- 
ence assembled to make a Hymn Book. Now what is the cause 
of this remarkable conversion of prince, priests, and people ? 
How did they all get religion? How did they get it so sud- 
denly ? How did they get so much of it ? 

The infidel gives no answer, except to tell us* that the aus- 
terity, purity and zeal of the first Christians, their good discipline, 
their belief in the resurrection of the body and the general judg- 
ment, and their persuasion that Christ and his apostles wrought 
miracles, had made a great many converts. This is j ust as if I 
inquired how a great fire originated, and you should tell me that 
it burned fast because it was very hot. What I want to know is, 
how it happened that these licentious Greeks, and Romans, and 
Asiatics, became austere and pure — how these frivolous philoso- 
phers suddenly became so zealous about religion — what implanted 
the belief of the resurrection of the body and of the judgment to 
come in the sceptical minds of these heathen scoffers — and how 
did the pagans of Italy, Egypt, Spain, Germany, Britain, come to 
believe in the miracles of one who lived hundreds of years before, 
and thousands of miles away, or to care a straw whether the 
written accounts of them were true or false ? According to the 
infidel account, the Council of Nice and the Emperor Constan- 
tine's Bible-making, is a most extraordinary business — a phe- 
nomenon without any natural cause, and they will allow no 
supernatural — a greater miracle than any recorded in the Bible. 

If we inquire, however, of the parties attending that Council, 
what the state of the case is, we shall learn that they believed — 
whether truly or erroneously we are not now inquiring — but they 
believed that a teacher sent from God, had appeared in Palestine 
two hundred and ninety years before, and had taught this religion 
which they had embraced ; had performed wonderful miracles, 
such as opening the eyes of the blind, healing lepers, raising the 

* Gibbon's Decline and Fall, Chap *v. 



WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 9 

dead; that he had been put to death by the Koman Governor, 
Pontius Pilate, and had risen again from the dead, and had 
spoken to hundreds of people, and gone out and in among them 
for six weeks after his resurrection ; that he had ascended up 
through the air to heaven in the sight of numbers of witnesses, 
and had promised that he would come again in the clouds of 
heaven to raise the dead, and judge every man according to his 
works ; that before he went away he appointed twelve of his inti- 
mate companions to teach his religion to the world, giving them 
power to work miracles in proof of their divine commission, and 
requiring mankind to hear them as they would hear him ; that 
they and their followers did so, in spite of persecutions, sufferings, 
and death, with so much success, that immense numbers were per- 
suaded to give up idolatry and its filthiness, and profess Chris- 
tianity and its holiness, and brave the fury of the heathen mob, and 
the vengeance of the Roman law — that a difference of opinion 
having arisen among them as to whether this teacher was an angel 
from heaven, or God ; whether they should pray and sing the 
Psalms to him as Athanasius and his party believed, or only 
give him some lesser honor as Arius and his party believed — and 
this difference making all the difference between idolatry on the 
one hand and impiety on the other, and so involving their ever- 
lasting salvation or damnation — they had embraced the first op- 
portunity after the cessation of persecution, and the accession of 
the first Christian Emperor, to assemble three hundred and 
eighteen of their most learned clergyman, of both sides, and from 
all countries between Spain and Persia, to discuss these solemn 
questions ; and that, through the whole of the discussions, both 
sides appealed to the writings of the Apostles, as being then well 
known, and of unquestioned authority with every one who held 
the Christian name. These facts being utterly indisputable, are 
acknowledged by all persons, infidel or Christian, at all acquainted 
with history *. 

Here then we have the books of the New Testament at the 
Council of Nice well known to the whole world ; and the Council, 
bo far from giving any authority to them, bowing to theirs, — both 

* The original authorities may he found collected in the 4th vol. of Lardner's Cred- 
ibility of the Gospel Ilistory. Abstracts of them, with ample references, in Mosheim 
•M Neander's Ecclesiastical Histories. 

89 



10 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Arian and Orthodox with one consent acknowledging that the 
whole Christian world received them as the writings of the Apostles 
of Christ. There were venerable men of fourscore and ten at that 
Council ; if these books had been first introduced in their lifetime, 
they must have known it. There . were men there whose parents 
had heard the Scriptures read in church from their childhood, 
and so could not be imposed upon with a new Bible. The New 
Testament could not be less than three generations old, else one or 
other of the disputants would have exposed the novelty of its 
introduction, from his own information. The Council of Nice then, 
did not make the New Testament. It was a book well known, 
ancient, and of undoubted authority among all Christians, ages 
before that Council. The existence of New Testament Scriptures 
then, ages before the Council of Nice, is a Great Fact. 

We next take up the assertions, propounded with a show of 
learning, that the books of the New Testament, and especially the 
gospels, were not in use, and were not known till the third cen- 
tury ; that they are not the productions of contemporary writers ; 
that the alleged ocular testimony or proximity in point of time 
of the sacred historians to the events recorded is mere assumption, 
originating in the titles which Biblical books bear in our canon ; 
that we stand here (in the gospel history), upon purely mythical 
and poetical ground ; and that the gospels and epistles are a grad- 
ually formed collection of myths, having little or no historic 
reality. So Strauss, Eichorn, DeWette, and their disciples here, 
attempt to set aside the New Testament. In plain English, it is 
a collection of forgeries. 

Now we might easily show that these assertions are absurd ; 
that in the hundred years between the death of the last of the 
Apostles, and the beginning of the third century, there was not 
time to form a mythology; that the times of Trajan's persecution, 
and that of the philosophic Aurelius and the busy bustling age of 
Severus, were not the times for such a business ; that bigoted Jews 
would not and could not have made such a character as Jesus of 
Nazareth — and the philosophers of that day, Celsus and Porphyry, 
for instance, hated it when presented to them, as heartily as either 
Strauss or Paine ; and that there were not wanting thousands of 
enemies, able and willing, to expose such a forgery. 

But we prefer the direct course of proving these assertions false, 
and we will draw the proof from enemies. It is an undeniable 
90 



WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 11 

fact that in the close of the second century, Celsus, an Epicurean 
philosopher, wrote a work against Christianity, entitled, " The 
Word of Truth," in which he quotes passages from the New Tes- 
tament, and so many of them, that from the fragments of his 
work which remain, we could gather all the principal facts of the 
birth, teaching, miracles, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
if the New Testament should be lost. If Paine quotes the New 
Testament to ridicule it, no man can deny that such a book was in 
existence at the time he wrote. If he takes the pains to write a 
book to confute it, it is self-evident that it is in circulation, and 
possessed of influence. So Celsus' attempt to reply to the gospels, 
and his quotations from them, are conclusive proofs that these books 
were generally circulated and believed, and held to be of authority 
at the time he wrote. Further, he shows every disposition to 
present every argument which could possibly damage the Christian 
cause. In fact, our modern infidels have clone little more than 
serve up his old objections. Now nothing could have served his 
purpose better than to prove that the records of the history of 
Christ were forgeries of a late date. This would have saved him 
all further trouble, and settled the fate of Christianity conclusively. 
He had every opportunity of ascertaining the fact, living as he did 
so near the times and scenes of the gospel history, and surrounded 
by heretics and false Christians, who would gladly have given him 
every information. But he never once intimates the least suspicion 
of such a thing— never questions the gospels as books of history— 
nor denies the miracles recorded in them, but attributes them to 
niao-ic* Here, then, we have testimony as acceptable to an infidel 
as that of Strauss or Voltaire— in fact, utterly undeniable by any 
man of common sense— that the New Testament was well known 
and generally received by Christians as authoritative, when Celsus 
wrote his reply to it, in the end of the second century. If it was 
a forgery, it was undoubtedly a forgery of old standing, if he could 
not detect it. 

But we will go back a step farther, and prove the antiquity of 
the New Testament by the testimony of another enemy, two 
generations older than Celsus. The celebrated heretic, Marcion, 
lived in the beginning of the second century, when he had the 
best opportunity of discovering a forgery in the writings of the 

* Origen Contra Cel3um, passim. 

91 



12 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

New Testament, if any such existed; he was excommunicated 
by the church, and being greatly enraged thereat, had every dis- 
position to say the worst he could about it. He traveled all the 
way from Sinope on the Black Sea, to Rome, and through Gala- 
tia, Bithynia, Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, the countries where 
the Apostles preached, and the churches to which they wrote, but 
never found any one to suggest the idea of a forgery to him. He 
affirmed that the gospel of Matthew, the epistle to the Hebrews, 
those of James and Peter, and the whole of the Old Testament, 
were books only for Jews, and published a new and altered 
edition of the gospel of Luke and ten epistles of Paul, for the use 
of his sect.* We have thus the most undoubted evidence, even 
the testimony of an enemy, that these books were in existence, 
and generally received as apostolical and authoritative by 
Christians, at the beginning of the second century, or within 
twenty years of the last of the Apostles, and by the churches 
to which they had preached and written. 

The only remaining conceivable cavil against the genuineness of 
the books of the New Testament is: " That they bear internal evi- 
dence of being collections of fragments written by different persons, 
— and are probably merely traditions committed to writing by 
various unknown writers, and afterwards collected and issued to 
the churches under the names of the Apostles, for the sake of 
greater authority." This theory being received as gospel by 
several learned men, has furnished matter for lengthy discussions 
as to the sources of the four gospels. Translated into English, it 
amounts to this, that Brown, Smith, White, and Jones, wrote out a 
number of essays and anecdotes, and persuaded the churches of 
Ephesus, Jerusalem, Antioch, Corinth, and the rest, to receive 
them as the writings of their ministers, who had lived for years, 
or were then living among them ; and on the strength of that 
notion of their being the writings of the Apostles, to govern their 
whole lives by these essays, and lay down their lives and peril 
their souls' salvation on the truth of these anecdotes. As though 
they could not tell whether such documents were forgeries or not 1 

It is almost incredible how ignorant dreaming book- worms are 
of the common business of life. Most of my readers will laugh 
at the idea of a serious answer to such a quibble. Nevertheless, 



* Lardner, yol. ix, p. 358. 

92 



WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 13 

for the sake of those whose inexperience may be abused by the 
authority of learned names, I will show them that the primitive 
Christians, supposing them able to read, could know whether their 
ministers did really write the books and letters which they received 
from them. 

If you go into the Citizens' Bank, you will find a large folio 
volume lying on the counter, and on looking at it you will see that 
it is filled with men's names in their own handwriting, and that 
no two of them are exactly alike. Every person who has any 
business to transact with the bank is requested to write his name 
in the book; and when his check comes afterward for payment, the 
clerk can tell at a glance if the signature is the same as that of 
which he has a single specimen. If there has been no opportunity 
for him to become personally acquainted with the bank, as in case 
of a foreigner newly arrived, he brings letters of introduction from 
some well known mutual friend, or is accompanied by some re- 
spectable citizen, who attests his identity. Business men have no 
difficulty whatever in ascertaining the genuineness of documents. 
It is only when people want to dispute Holy Scripture that they 
give up common sense. 

Holy Scripture was known to be the genuine writing of the 
Apostles, just in the same way as any other writing was known to 
be genuine, only the churches who received the writings of the 
Apostles had ten thousand times better security against forgery 
than any bank in the Union. In one of the first letters Paul 
writes to the churches — the second letter to the Thessalonians — to 
whom he had been preaching only a few weeks before, sent from 
Athens, distant only some two days' journey, full of allusions to 
their affairs, commands how to conduct themselves in the business 
of their workshops, as well as in the devotions of the church, and 
explanations of some misunderstood parts of a former letter sent 
by the hand of a mutual friend — he formally gives them his sig- 
nature, for the purpose of future reference, and comparison of any 
document which might purport to come from him, with that 
specimen of his autograph. He gives not the name merely, but 
his apostolic benediction also, in his own handwriting : The salu- 
tation of me, Paul, with mine own hand, which is the token in every 
epistle, so I write. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you 
all. Amen. It shows the heart of an Apostle of Christ; but 
what concerns the present question is the remark, which every 

93 



14 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

"business man ■will in a' moment appreciate, how immensely the 
addition of these two lines adds to the security against forgery. 
It is a very hard thing to forge a signature, but give a business 
man two lines of any man's writing besides that, and he is per- 
fectly secure against imposition. 

The churches to which the epistles were written, and to which 
the gospels were delivered, consisted largely of business men, of 
merchants and traders, tent makers and coppersmiths, city cham- 
berlains, and officers of Caesar's household, and the like. Does 
any one think such men could not tell the handwriting of their 
minister, who had lived among them for years ; or that men who 
were risking their lives for the instructions he wrote them, would 
care less about the genuineness of the documents, than you do 
about the genuineness of a ten dollar check ? I am not as long in 
this city as Paul was in Ephesus, nor one-fourth of the time that 
John lived there, yet I defy all the advocates of the mythical 
theory in Germany, and all their disciples here, to write a myth 
half as long as this tract, and impose it on the elders and members 
of my church as my writing. Let it only be presented in manu- 
script to the congregation — there was no printing in Paul's days — 
and in five minutes a dozen members of the church will detect the 
forgery, even if I should hold my peace. And were I to leave on 
a mission to China or India, and write letters to the church, would 
any of these business men, who have seen my writing, have the 
least hesitation in recognizing it again ? Do you think any body 
could forge a letter as from me, and impose it on them? What 
an absurdity, then, to suppose that any body could write a gospel 
or epistle, and just get all the members of a large church to believe 
that an Apostle wrote it ! The first Christians, then, were abso- 
lutely certain that the documents which they received as apostolic, 
were really so. The Church of Rome could attest the epistle to 
them, and the gospels of Mark and Luke written there. The 
Church of Ephesus could attest the epistle to them, and the gospel, 
and letters, and Revelation of John written there. And so on of 
all the other churches ; and these veritable autographs were long 
preserved. Says Tertullian, who was ordained A. D. 192 : "Well, 
if you be willing to exercise your curiosity profitably in the busi- 
ness of your salvation, visit the apostolical churches in which the 
very chairs of the Apostles still preside — in which their authentic 
letters themselves are recited, (apud quae ipsce authenticce liter ce 
94 



WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT.' 15 

eorum recitantur,) sounding forth the voice and representing the 
countenance of each one of them. Is Achaia near you, you have 
Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you have Philippi, 
you have Thessalonica. If you can go to Asia, you have Ephesus ; 
but if you are near to Italy, you have Rome."* There can not 
be the least doubt about the preservation of documents for a far 
longer time than from Paul to Tertullian — one hundred and fifty 
years. I hold in my hand a Bible, the family Bible of the Gibsons 
— printed in 1599 — two hundred and fifty-seven years oldj in perfect 
preservation. 

The only difficulty which now remains is the objection, that they 
might have been corrupted by alterations, and interpolations by 
monks in later times. We have two securities against such corrup- 
tions in the way these documents were given, and the nature of their 
contents. They were sacred heirlooms, and they were public docu- 
ments. Could you, or could any man, have permission to alter the 
original copy of Washington's Farewell Address ? Would not the 
man who should attempt such sacrilege be torn in a thousand 
pieces ? But Washington will never be an object of such veneration 
as John, nor will his Farewell Address ever compare in importance 
with Paul's Farewell Letter to the Philippians. Besides, these 
gospels and letters were public documents, containing the records 
of laws, in obedience to which men were daily crossing their 
inclinations, enduring the mockery of their neighbors, losing their 
money, and endangering their lives. They contained the proofs 
and promises of that religious faith in God and hope of heaven, for 
the sake of which they suffered such things. Is it credible that 
they would allow them to be altered and corrupted ? You might 
far more rationally talk of some southern politician altering the 
Declaration of Independence, or some northern man altering the 
Constitution of the United States. Translated into different lan- 
guages — transported into Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, 
Greece, Turkey, Carthage, Egypt, Parthia, Persia, India, and 
China — committed to memory by children, and quoted in the 
writings of Christian authors of the first three centuries, to such 
an extent, that we can gather the whole of the New Testament, 
except twenty-six verses, from their writings — appealed to as 
authority by heretics and orthodox in controversy — and publicly 

* Tertullian .De Prescript, cap. 36. 

95 



16 WHO WROTE THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

read in the hearing of tens of hundreds of thousands every Sab- 
bath day in worship — we are a thousand times more certain that 
the New Testament has not been corrupted, than we are that the 
Declaration of Independence is genuine. 

On this ground then we plant ourselves. The whole story of a 
late and gradual formation of the New Testament, or, in plain 
English, of its forgery, stands out as an unmitigated falsehood in 
the eyes of every man capable of writing his own name. The 
first churches could not be deceived with forgeries for apostolic 
writings. Nor could they, if they would, allow these writings to 
be corrupted. Be they true or false, fact or fiction, the books of 
the New Testament are the words of the Apostles of our Lord and 
Saviour Jesus Christ. In the next Tract we will inquire into the 
truth of their story. 



No. 27. 

IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 



"For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we 
had unto you, and how ye turned to God from idols, to serve 
the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, 
whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivered us 
from the wrath to come." — I. Thess. i : 9, 10. 

In the last Tract we ascertained that the Gospels and Epistles 
were not forgeries of some nameless monks of the third century — 
that the shopkeepers, silversmiths, tent-makers, coppersmiths, tan- 
ners, physicians, senators, town councillors, officers of customs, 
city treasurers, and nobles of Caesar's household, in Rome, Antioch, 
Ephesus, Corinth, Athens, and Alexandria, could no more be im- 
posed upon in the matter of documents, attested by the well known 
signatures of their beloved ministers, than you could by letters or 
sermons purporting to come from your own pastor — and that the 
documents which they believed to contain the directory of their 
lives, and the charter of that salvation which they valued more 
than their lives — which they read in their churches, recited at their 
tables, quoted in their writings, appealed to in their controversies, 
translated into many languages, and dispersed into every part of 
the known world, they neither would nor could corrupt or falsify. 

The genuineness of the copies of the New Testament which we 
now possess, is abundantly proved by the comparison of over two 
thousand manuscripts, from all parts of the world; scrutinized 
during a period of nearly a hundred years, by the most critical 
scholars, so accurately that the variations of such things as would 
in English correspond to the crossing of a t, or the dotting of an i, 
have been carefully enumerated; yet the result of the whole of 
this searching scrutiny has been merely the suggestion of thirteen, 
or, as later critics say, nine unimportant alterations in the received 
text, of the seven thousand nine hundred and fifty-nine verses of 
the New Testament. This is a fact utterly unexampled in the 
history of manuscripts. There are but six manuscripts of the 
Comedies of Terence, and these have not been copied once for 
every thousand times the New Testament has been transcribed, 
yet there are thirty thousand variations found in these six manu- 
scripts, or an average of five thousand for each, and many of them 
7 97 



2 IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 

seriously affect the sense. The average number of variations in 
the manuscripts of the New Testament, examined, is not quite 
thirty for each, including all the trivialities already noticed. 

We are, then, by the special providence of God, now as un- 
doubtedly in possession of genuine copies of the Gospels and 
Epistles, written by the companions of Jesus, as we are of genuine 
copies of the Constitution of the United States, and of the Declara- 
tion of Independence. These are historic documents, of well es- 
tablished genuineness and antiquity, which we now proceed to 
examine as to their truthfulness. 

There is no history so trustworthy as that prepared by contem- 
porary writers, especially by those who have themselves been ac- 
tively engaged in the events which they relate. Such history 
never loses its interest, nor does the lapse of ages, in the least de- 
gree, impair its credibility. While the documents can be pre- 
served, Xenophon's Retreat of the Ten Thousand, Caesar's Gallic 
War, and the Despatches of the Duke of Wellington, will be as 
trustworthy as on the day they were written. Yet some suspicion 
may arise in our minds, that these commanders and historians 
might keep back some important events which would have dimmed 
their reputation with posterity, or have colored those they have re- 
lated so as to add to their fame. Of the great facts related in 
memoirs addressed to their companions in arms, able at a glance 
to detect a falsehood, we never entertain the least suspicion. 

There is, however, another" kind of contemporary history not so 
connected and regular as the formal diary or journal, which does 
not even propose to relate history at all, but is for that very reason 
entirely removed from the suspicion of giving a coloring to it; 
which, at the cost of a little patience and industry, gives us the 
most convincing confirmations of the truth, or exposures of the 
mistakes of historians, by the undesigned and incidental way in 
which the use of a name, a date, a proverb, a jest, an expletive, a 
quotation, an allusion, flashes conviction upon the reader's mind. I 
mean contemporary correspondence. If we have the private letters 
of celebrated men laid before us, we are enabled to look right into 
them, and see their true characters. Thus Macaulay exhibits to 
the world the proud, lying, stupid tyrant James, displayed in his 
own letters. Thus Voltaire records himself an adulterer, and begs 
his friend, D'Alembert, to lie for him ; his friend replies that he 
has done so. Thus the correspondence of the great American 
98 



IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 6 

herald of the Age of Reason exhibits him drinking a quart of 
brandy daily at his friend's expense, and refusing to pay his bill 
for boarding. In the unguarded freedom of confidential corres- 
pondence, the veil is taken from the heart. We see men as they 
are. The true man stands out in his native dignity, and the gild- 
ing is rubbed off the hypocrite. Give the world their letters, and 
let the grave silence the plaudits and the clamors which deafened 
the generation among whom they lived, and no man will hesitate 
whether or not to pronounce Hume a sensualist, or Washington the 
noblest work of God — an honest man. 

If we add another test of truthfulness, by increasing the number 
of the witnesses, comparing a number of letters referring to the 
same events, written by persons of various degrees of education, 
and of different occupations and ranks of life, resident in different 
countries, acting independently of each other, and find them all 
agree in their allusions to, or direct mention of, some central facta 
concerning which they are all interested, no one can rightfully 
doubt that this undesigned agreement declares the truth. But if, 
in addition to all these undesigned coincidences, we happen upon 
the correspondence of persons whose interests and passions were 
diametrically opposed to those of our correspondents, and find that, 
when they have occasion to refer to them, they also confirm the 
great facts already ascertained, then our belief becomes conviction 
which cannot be overturned by any sophistry, that these things 
did occur. If Whig and Tory agree in relating the facts of James's 
flight and AVilliam's accession, if the letters of his Jacobite friends 
and those of the French ambassador confirm the statements of the 
English Historian, and if we are put in possession of the letters 
which James himself wrote from France and Ireland to his friends 
in England, does any man. in his common sense doubt that the Re- 
volution of 1688 did actually occur ? 

When in addition to all this concentration and convergence of 
documentary testimony, one finds that the matters related, being 
of public concern, and the changes effected for the public weal, 
the people of Great Britain have ever since observed, and do 
to this day celebrate, by religious worship and public rejoicings, 
the anniversaries of the principal events of that Revolution, and 
that he himself has been present, and has heard the thanks- 
givings, and witnessed the rejoicings on those anniversaries, 
the facts of the history come out from the domains of learned 

99 



4 IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 

curiosity, and take their stand on the market place of the busy 
world's engagements. We become at once conscious that this is a 
practical question — a great fact which concerns us — that the whole 
of the law and government of a vast empire has felt its impress — - 
that our ancestors and ourselves have been moulded under its in- 
fluence, and that the Protestant religion of Europe and America, 
under whose guardianship we have grown to a prominent place 
among the people of earth, and may arrive at a better prominence 
among the nations of the saved, has been preserved, under God, 
by that Revolution. We could scarcely know whether most to 
pity or contemn the man who should labor to persuade us that 
such a Revolution had never occurred, or that the facts had been 
essentially misrepresented. 

Now it is precisely on the same kind of evidence as that which 
we have for these indisputable facts of the English Revolution, 
that we believe the great facts of the Christian Revolution. We 
have contemporary histories, formal and informal ; letters, public 
and private, from the principal agents in it, and opposers of it, 
dispersed from Babylon to Rome, and addressed to Greeks, 
Romans, Jews, and Asiatics; written by physicians, fishermen, 
proconsuls, emperors, and apostles. And these great facts stand 
out more prominently on the theater of the world's business as 
effecting changes on our laws and lives, and their introduction as 
authenticated by public commemorations, more solemn and more 
numerous than those resulting from the English or the Amer- 
ican Revolution. Our main difficulty lies in selecting, from the 
vast mass of materials, a portion sufficiently distinct and manage- 
able to be handled in a tract of this size. 

We shall be guided by the motto already announced as the rule 
of inductive research. One thing at a time; and the nearest first. 
The Epistles being nearer our own times than the Gospels, claim 
our first notice, and first among these, those which stand latest on 
the page of sacred history, the ten letters of John; two from 
Peter to the Christians of Asia; and those which Paul, in chains 
for the gospel, dictated from imperial Rome. 

From the abundant notices of the early Christians by historians 
and philosophers, satirists and comedians, martyrs and magis- 
trates, Jewish, Christian, and heathen, I shall select only two for 
comparison with the Epistles of the Apostles ; and both those 
heathen — the celebrated letter of Pliny to Trajan, and the well 
100 



IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 5 

established history of Tacitus — and both utterly undeniable, and 
admitted by the most sceptical to be beyond suspicion. Not that I 
suppose that the testimony of men who did not take the trouble of 
making any inquiry into the reality of the facts of the Christian 
religion, is more accurate than that of those whose lives were de- 
voted to its study ; or that we have any just reason to attach as 
much weight to the assertions of persons,_who, by their own show- 
ing, tortured and murdered men and women convicted of no crime 
but that of bearing the name of Christ, as to those of these mar- 
tyrs, whose characters they acknowledged to be blameless, and 
who sealed their testimony with the last and highest attestation of 
sincerity — their blood. Considered merely as a historian, whether, 
as regards means of knowledge, or tests of truthfulness, by every 
unprejudiced mind, Peter will always be preferred to Pliny. 
But because the world will ever love its own, and hate the dis- 
ciples of the Lord, there will always be a large class to whom the 
History of Tacitus will seem more veritable than that of Luke, 
and the Letters of Pliny more reliable than those of Peter. For 
their sakes we avail ourselves of that most convincing of all 
attestations — the testimony of an enemy. What friends and foes 
unite in attesting must be accepted as true. 

The facts which we shall thus establish are not, in the first 
instance, those called miraculous. We are now ascertaining the 
general character, for truthfulness, of our letter writers and his- 
torians. If we find that their general historic narrative is con- 
tradicted by that of other credible historians, then we suspect 
their story. But if we find that, in all essential matters of public 
notoriety, they are supported by the concurrent testimony of their 
foes, and that the narrative of the miracles they relate, bears 
the seals of thousands who from foes became friends, from con- 
viction of its truth, then we receive their witness as true. Even 
in Paul's day, heathen Greek writers bore testimony to the Apos- 
tles, what manner of entering in they had unto the converts of 
Thessalonica ; and how they turned to God from idols, to serve 
the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from Heaven, 
whom he raised from the dead — even Jesus, who delivered us from 
the wrath to come. Pliny wrote forty years later. 

Pliny, the younger, was born A. D. 61 — was Praetor under Do- 
mitian — consul in the third year of Trajan, A. D. 100 — was ex- 

101 



6 IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 

ceedingly desirous to add to his other honors that of the priest- 
hood; was accordingly consecrated an augur, and built temples, 
bought images, and consecrated them on his estates ; was, in A. D. 
106, appointed Governor of the Roman Provinces of Pontus and 
Bithynia* — a vast tract of Asia Minor, lying along the shores of 
the Black Sea and the Propontis ; and including the Province 
anciently called Mysia, in which were situated Pergamos and 
Thyatira, and in the immediate vicinity of Sardis and Phila- 
delphia. Pliny reached his Province by the usual route, the 
port of Ephesus ; where John had lived for many years, and in- 
dited his letters A. D., 96. The letters of Peter to the strangers 
scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 
bring us to the same mountainous region, eight hundred miles dis- 
tant from Judea; whence, in earlier days, our savage ancestors re- 
ceived those Phoenician priests of Baal, whose round towers mark 
the coasts of Ireland nearest to the setting sun; and whence, about 
the period under consideration, came the heralds of the Sun of 
Righteousness, who brought the " Leabhar Eoiii"^ which tells 
their children of him in whom is the life and the light of men. 
Natives of these countries had been in Jerusalem during the 
crucifixion of Jesus, and, though only strangers, had witnessed 
the darkness, and the earthquake, and the rumors of what had 
come to pass in those days ; and on the day of Pentecost had 
mingled with the curious crowd around the Apostles, and heard 
them speak, in their own mother tongues, of the wonderful works 
of God. The remainder of the story of their conversion we gather 
from the letters of Peter, John, and Pliny. 

" Pliny, to the Emperor Trajan, wisheth health and happiness '.% 

"It is my constant custom, Sire, to refer myself to you in all 
matters concerning which I have any doubt. For who can better di- 
rect me when I hesitate, or instruct me when I am ignorant? 

"I have never been present at any trials of Christians, so that I 
know not well what is the subject matter of punishment, or of in- 
quiry, or what strictures ought to be used in either. Nor have I been 
a little perplexed to determine whether any difference ought to be 
made upon account of age, or whether the young and tender, and the 
full grown and robust, ought to be treated all alike ; whether repent- 
ance should entitle to pardon, or whether all who have once been 

*Lardner, vii. p. 18, et seq. 

■f Pronounced Laar Owen — John's Book. 

% Lib. x. Ep. 97, Lardner, vii. 22. 

102 



IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 7 

Christians ought to be punished, though they are now no longer so , 
whether the name itself, although no crimes be detected, or crimes 
only belonging to the name ought to be punished. 

"In the mean time, I have taken this course with all who have 
been brought before me, and have been accused as Christians. I have 
put the question to them, whether they were Christians. Upon 
their confessing to me that they were, I repeated the question a se- 
cond and a third time, threatening also to punish them with death. 
Such as still persisted, I ordered away to be punished ; for it was no 
doubt with me, whatever might be the nature of their opinion, that 
contumacy and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished. There 
were others of the same infatuation, whom, because they are Roman 
citizens, I have noted down to be sent to the city. 

"In a short time the crime spreading itself, even whilst under per- 
secution, as is usual in such cases, divers sorts of people came in my 
way. An information was presented to me, without mentioning the 
author, containing the names of many persons, who, upon examina- 
tion, denied that they were Christians, or had even been so ; who re- € 
peated after me an invocation of the gods, and with wine and frank- 
incense made supplication to your image, which, for that purpose, I 
have caused to be brought and set before them, together with the 
statues of the deities. Moreover, they reviled the name of Christ. 
None of which things, as is said, they who are really Christians can 
by any means be compelled to do. These, therefore, I thought proper 
to discharge. 

" Others were named, by an informer, who at first confessed them- 
selves Christians, and afterwards denied it. The rest said they had 
been Christians, but had left them ; some three years ago, some 
longer, and one or more above twenty years. They all worshiped 
your image, and the statues of the gods ; these also reviled Christ. 
They affirmed that the whole of their fault or error lay in this : that 
they were wont to meet together, on a stated day, before it was light, 
and sing among themselves alternately, a hymn to Christ as a God, 
and bind themselves by a sacrament, not to the commission of any 
wickedness, but not to be guilty of theft, or robbery, or adultery ; 
never to falsify their word, nor to deny a pledge committed to them, 
when called upon to return it. When these things were performed, 
it was their custom to separate, and then to come together again to a 
meal, which they ate in common, without any disorder ; but this they 
had forborne since the publication of my edict, by which, according 
to your command, I prohibited assemblies. After receiving this ac- 
count, I judged it the more necessary to examine two maid servants 
which were called ministers, by torture. But I have discovered no 
thing besides a bad and excessive superstition. 

" Suspending, therefore, all judicial proceedings, I have recourse to 
you for advice ; for it has appeared to me a matter highly deserving 
consideration, especially upon account of the great number of per- 
sons who are in danger of suffering. For many of all ages, and every 
rank, of both sexes likewise, are accused, and will be accused. Nor 
has the contagion of this superstition seized cities only, but the lesser 
towns also, and the open country. Nevertheless, it seems to me 
that it may be restrained and arrested. It is certain that the temples, 

103 



8 IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 

which were almost forsaken, begin to be frequented. And the sacred 
solemnities, after a long intermission, are revived. Victims, likewise, 
are every where bought up, whereas, for some time, there were few 
purchasers. Whence, it is easy to imagine, what numbers of men 
might be reclaimed, if pardon were granted to those who shall 
repent V 

" Trajan to Pliny, wisheth health and happiness :* 

"You have taken the right course, my Pliny, in your proceedings 
with those who have been brought before you as Christians ; for it is 
impossible to establish any one rule that shall hold universally. 
They are not to be sought after. If any are brought before you, and 
are convicted, they ought to be punished. However, he that denies 
his being a Christian, and makes it evident in fact, that is, by sup- 

{)licating to our gods, though he be suspected to have been so former- 
y, let him be pardoned upon repentance. But in no case, of any 
crime whatever, may a bill of information be received without being 
signed by him who presents it, for that would be a dangerous prece- 
dent, and unworthy of my government." 

I must request my reader now to procure a New Testament, and 
read, at one reading, the First General Epistle of Peter, the First 
General Epistle of John, and his Seven Epistles to the Churches in 
Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamus, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and La- 
odicea — only about as much matter as four pages of Harper's Maga- 
zine, or half a page of the Commercial — that he may be able to do 
the same justice to the Apostles as to the Governor. He will thus 
be able to see the force of the various allusions to the numbers, 
doctrines, morals, persecutions, and perseverance of the Christians, 
contained in those letters ; the object which I have in view being 
to establish their authenticity by proving the truthfulness of their 
allusions to these things. If you think this too much trouble, 
please lay down the tract, and dismiss the consideration of religion 
from your thoughts. If the letters of the Apostles are not worth 
a careful reading, it is of no consequence whether they are true or 
false. 

1. These letters take for granted, that the fact of the existence of 
large numbers of Christians, organized into churches, and meeting 
regularly for religious worship, at the close of the first century, is 
a matter of public notoriety to the world. Here, in countries 
eight hundred miles distant from its birth-place, in the lifetime of 
Vthose who had seen its founder crucified, we find Christians scat- 
tered over Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithyrta — 

* Lib. x. Ep. 98, Lardner, vii. 24. 
104 



rs THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 9 

churches in seven provincial cities — the sect well known to Pliny, 
before he left Italy, as. a proscribed and persecuted religion, the 
professors of which were customarily brought before courts for 
trial and punishment — though he had not himself been present at 
such trials — and now so numerous in his provinces, that a great 
number of persons, of both sexes, young and old, of all ranks, 
natives and Roman citizens, professed Christianity. Others, in- 
fluenced by their example and instruction, renounced idolatry ; 
victims were not led to sacrifice ; the sacred rites of the gods were 
suspended, and their temples forsaken. The existence, then, of 
churches of Christ, consisting of vast numbers of converted 
heathens, at the close of the first century, is in no wise mythologi- 
cal or dubious. It is an established historical fact. The Epistles 
of the Apostles stand confirmed by the Epistles of the Governor 
and the Emperor. 

2. The second great fact presented in the Epistles, and confirm- 
ed by the letters of the Governor and the Emperor, is, that the 
worship of the Christian church then, was essentially the same 
which it is now. We find these Christians of the first century 
commemorating the death and resurrection of Christ, and render- 
ing divine honors to him, the "stated day" on which they assem- 
bled for worship, and "common meal," are as plain a description 
of the "disciples coming together upon the first day of the week, 
to break bread," as a heathen could give in few words. Their 
terms of communion too, to which they pledged their members by 
a sacrament, "not to be guilty of theft, robbery, or adultery; never 
to falsify their word, or deny a pledge committed to them," find 
their counterpart in every well regulated church at this day. 

The articles of the Christian faith, then, are not the " gradual 
accretions of centuries," nor is the " redemptive idea, as attaching 
to Christ, a dogma of the post- Augustine period." The churches of 
the first century commemorated the death and resurrection of 
Jesus, as that of a divine person, " singing the hymn to him as a 
God," which their descendants sing at this day around his table: 

" Forever and forever is, God, thy throne of might, 
The scepter of thy Kingdom is a scepter that is right, 
Thou lovest right, and hatest ill; for God, thy God, Most High, 
Above thy fellows hath with th' oil of joy anointed thee." 

And the question will force itself upon our minds, and cannot be 
evaded, how did these apostles persuade such multitudes of 

105 



10 . IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 

heathens to believe their repeated assertions of the death, resur- 
rection, and glory of Jesus. In the space of three octavo pages, 
Peter refers to these facts eighteen times. John, in like manner, 
repeatedly affirms them. The Christian religion consists in the be- 
lief of these facts, and a life corresponding to them. Now, how 
did the apostles persuade such multitudes of heathens to believe 
a report so wonderful, profess a religion so novel, renounce the 
gods they had worshiped from their childhood, and all the cere- 
monies of an attractive, sensual religion; ''temples of splendid 
architecture, statues of exquisite sculpture, priests and victims 
superbly adorned, attendant beauteous youth of both sexes, per- 
forming all the sacred rites with gracefulness ; religious dances, 
illuminations, concerts of the sweetest music, perfumes of the 
rarest fragrance," and other more licentious enjoyments, insepar- 
able from heathen worship. How did they persuade them to ex- 
change all this for the assembly before daybreak, the frugal com- 
mon meal, the psalm to Christ, and the commemoration of the 
death of a crucified malefactor ? If we add, that they commemo- 
rated his resurrection, by observing the Lord's day, the question 
still comes up, How did they come to believe that he was risen 
from the dead ? Could a few despised strangers, or a few citizens 
if you will, persuade such a community, purely by natural means, 
to believe such a report, to care whether the Syrian Jew died or 
rose, or to commemorate weekly, by a solemn religious service, 
either his death or resurrection ? It is evident they believed what 
they commemorated. How did they come to do so ? 

But whether we can answer the question or not, the fact stands 
out as indisputable, that not merely the writers of the Epistles 
and Gospels, and a few enthusiasts, but an immense multitude of 
all ages, of both sexes, and of every rank — the whole membership 
of the primitive churches — did believe in the death, resurrection, 
and glory of the Lord Jesus, and did render to him divine wor- 
ship. This second great fact affirmed in the Epistles, stands con- 
firmed by the testimony of the heathen Governor, and of the 
Roman Emperor. 

3. A mere theory of a new religion, unconnected with practice, 
may be easily received by those who care little about any, so long 
as it brings no suffering or inconvenience. But the religion of 
these Christians was, as you see, a practical religion. If their 
new worship required a great departure from the worship of their 
106 



IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE/ 11 

childhood, their Christian morals required a still greater departure 
from their former mode of life. I need not remind you of the 
moral codes of Socrates, Plato, and Aristides, who taught that 
lying, thieving, adultery, and murder were lawful ; * nor how 
much worse than the theory of the best of the heathen, were the 
lives of the worst ; nor how unpopular to persons so educated 
would be such teaching as this — "Forasmuch, then, as Christ hath 
suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same 
mind ; for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin : 
that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the 
lusts of men, but to the will of God. For the time past of our life 
may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, when we 
walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, banquet- 
ings, and abominable idolatries ; wherein they think it strange 
that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot ; speaking 
evil of you, who shall give account to him that is ready to judge 
the living and the dead." " Lay aside all malice, and guile, and 
hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings." "Whosoever 
abideth in Christ sinneth not. Whosoever sinneth hath not seen 
him, neither known him. Little children, let no man deceive you. 
He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 
He that committeth sin is of the devil." So sharp, and stern, and 
strictly virtuous, is apostolic religion, as displayed in these letters. 
Is it possible then that these converted heathens did really even 
approach this standard of morality ? Bid this gospel of Christ 
actually produce any such reformation of their lives ? 

You have the testimony of apostates, eager to save their lives by 
giving such information as they knew would be acceptable to the 
persecutor ; you have the testimony of the two aged deaconesses, 
under torture ; you have the unwilling, but yet express, testimony 
of their torturer and murderer, that all his cruel ingenuity could 
discover nothing worse than an excessive superstition and cul- 
pable obstinacy. What, then, does this philosophic inspector of 
entrails, and adorer of idols, call an excessive superstition and 
.culpable obstinacy? Why, they bound themselves by the most 
solemn religious services, not to be guilty of theft, robbery, 
cv adultery ; not to falsify their word, nor deny a pledge com- 
mitted to them ; and when some senseless blocks of brass were 

*See Tract No. 25. 

107 



12 IS THE GOSPEL FACT OF^ FABLE. 

carried on men's shoulders, into the court-house, to represent a 
mortal man, they would not adore them, nor pray to them — ■ 
no, not though this philosopher compiled the liturgy, and set 
the example. For this refusal, and this alone, he ordered them 
away to death. Doubtless they heard, in their hearts, the well- 
known words, "Let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, 
or as an evil doer, or as a busy body in other men's matters. But 
if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let 
him glorify God on this behalf." 

The morality of the Epistles, then, was not merely a fine theory, 
but an actual rule of life. The moral codes of the apostles were 
received as actually binding on the members of the churches of 
the first century. In this all-important matter of the rule of a 
good life — the fruits by which the tree is known — the integrity, 
authority, and success of the Apostles, in turning licentious 
heathens into moral Christians, is authenticated by the unwilling 
testimony of their persecutors. The Epistles of the Apostles 
stand confirmed as to their ethics, by the letters of Trajan and 
Pliny. 

4. The only other fact to which I call your attention, from 
among the multitude alluded to in these letters, is the cost at 
which these converts from heathenism embraced this new religion. 
Every one who renounced heathenism, and professed the name of 
Christ, knew very well that he must suffer for it. "Beloved, 
think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, 
as though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice, in- 
asmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when his 
glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad with exceeding joy ;" this 
was the welcome of the Bithynian convert into the Church of 
Christ. Persecution by fire and sword was then the common lot 
of the church. " I have never been present at any trials of the 
Christians," says the Governor. Such trials were well known to 
him it seems. He was not sure whether he should murder all who 
ever had borne the name of Christ, or only those who proved 
themselves to be really his disciples, by refusing to revile him, 
and return to idolatry ; and the merciful Emperor commands him 
to spare the apostates. Above twenty years before — in A. D. 
86 — there were apostates from the persecuted religion. In A. D. 
90, John had written, "they went out from us, that it might be 
made manifest they were not of us; for if they had been of us, 
108 



IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 13 

they -would no doubt have continued with us ; but they "went out 
that it might be made manifest that they were not all of us." So 
it seems Pliny thought : " They all worshipped your image, and 
other statues of the gods ; these also reviled Christ. None of 
which things, as is said, they who are really Christians can by 
any means be compelled to do." What these means were he tells 
us : "I put the question to them, whether they were Christians. 
Upon their confessing to me that they were, I repeated the ques- 
tion a second and a third time, threatening, also, to punish them 
with death. Such as still persisted, I ordered away to be punish- 
ed." What is very remarkable, it was, it seems, "usual in such 
cases, for the crime to spread itself, even whilst under persecu- 
tion." In the face of such dangers, these heathens would still 
profess faith in Christ, and when they might have saved their lives 
by reviling him, refused to do so. From the published rescript of 
the Emperor, approving of Pliny's course, and condemning to 
death all who were convicted of being really Christians — from the 
public circulars of the Apostles, warning them of "fiery trials," 
" Satan casting some of them into prison," and exhorting them to 
"be faithful unto death ;" and from such comments on these as 
the torture and public execution of aged women as well as men, 
— the terms of discipleship were well known to the whole world. 
Yet we see that in the face of all this, " great numbers of persons, 
of both sexes, and of all ages, and of every rank," in Pliny's 
opinion, were so steadfast in their faith, that "they were in great 
danger of suffering." 

Here then is another well attested fact, in which the testimony 
of the apostles stands confirmed by the signatures of the Bithy- 
nian Governor, and the Roman Emperor — a fact which stands 
forth clear, prominent, most undoubted, without the smallest trace 
of any thing mythological or misty about it — that, in A. D. 106, 
great numbers of converted heathens did suffer exile, torture, and 
death itself, rather than renounce Christ ; and that it was well 
known that the Christian faith enabled its possessor to overcome 
the world. 

These four great facts of the later Epistles, being thus establish- 
ed beyond dispute, in pursuance of our plan, we ascend the 
stream of history some forty years, to the time of the earlier 
Epistles, when Paul lay in the Mamertine dungeons, and his faith- 
ful companion, Luke, wrote the continuation of his narrative of 

109 



14 IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 

the things most surely believed among the Christians ; when 
" Apostles were made as the filth of the world, and the ofFscour- 
ing of all things;" and Christians "were made a gazing stock, 
both by reproaches and afflictions;" "were brought before kings 
and rulers, and hated of all nations for Christ's name sake;" "en- 
dured a great fight of afflictions ;" were " for his sake killed all 
the day long, and annointed as sheep for the slaughter ;" were 
made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men." We re- 
move the field of our investigation from a remote Province of Asia, 
to one equally remote from Judea, and far more unfavorable for 
the growth of the religion of a crucified Jew — the proud capital of 
the world — imperial Rome. The time shall be shortly after the 
burning of the city, in A. D. 64, and during the raging of the 
first of those systematic, imperial, and savage persecutions 
through which the Church of Christ waded, in the bloody foot- 
steps of her Lord, to world-wide influence, and undying fame. 
Our historian shall be the well known Tacitus ; and the single ex- 
tract from his history, one of which the infidel Gibbon says:* 
" The most sceptical criticism is obliged to respect the truth of 
this important fact, and the integrity of this celebrated passage of 
Tacitus," I shall not insert quotations from Paul or Luke ; that 
were merely to transcribe large portions of the Epistles and Gos- 
pels, which whoever will not carefully peruse, disqualifies himself 
for forming a judgment of their veracity. The confirmation of 
the four facts already established, of the existence, worship, 
morals, and sufferings of the Disciples of Christ ; and these facts 
as well known within thirty years after his death, will sufficiently 
appear by the perusal of the following testimony of Tacitus. + 

After relating the burning of the city, and Nero's attempt to 
transfer the odium of it to the sect " commonly known by the 
name of Christians, he says:" 

" The author of that name was Christ, who, in the reign of Ti- 
berius, was put to death as a criminal, under the procurator, Pontius 
Pilate. JBut this pestilent superstition, checked for awhile, broke out 
afresh, and spread not only over Judea, where the evil originated, but 
also in Rome, where all that is evil on the earth finds its way, and is 
practised. At first, those only -were apprehended who confessed 
themselves of that sect ; afterward, a vast multitude discovered by 
them ; all of whom were condemned, not so much for the crime of 
burning the city, as for their enmity to mankind. Their executions 

♦Decline and Tall, vol. 2, p. 407. iLib. xv. chap. 44. 

110 



IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 15 

were'so contrived, as to expose them to derision and contempt. Some 
■were covered over with the skins of wild beasts, that they might be 
torn to pieces by dogs ; some were crucified ; while others, having 
been daubed over with combustible materials, were set up for lights 
in the night time, and thus burned to death. For these spectacles 
Nero gave his own gardens, and, at the same time, exhibited there 
the diversions of the circus ; sometimes standing in the crowd as a 
spectator, in the habit of a charioteer ; and, at other times, driving a 
chariot himself ; until at length these men, though really criminal, 
and deserving of exemplary punishment, began to be commiserated, 
as people who were destroyed, not out of regard to the public wel- 
fare, but only to gratify the cruelty of one man." 

We add no comment on this remarkable passage. Take up 
your New Testament and read the contemporary history — Acts 22 
to the end of the book — and the letters of Paul from Rome, to 
Philemon, Titus, the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and the 
second to Timothy, written when the aged prisoner was ready to 
be offered, and the time of his departure, amidst such scenes and 
sufferings, was at hand. Then form your own opinion as to the 
origin and nature of that faith in Jesus which enabled him to say: 
"None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto 
me, that I may finish my course with joy, and the testimony 
which I have received of the Lord Jesus." "I know in whom I 
have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that 
which I have committed to Him against that day." 

Whatever may be your opinion of the Apostles* hope for the 
future, you must acknowledge that we have ascertained, beyond 
contradiction, these four facts of the past: 

1. That without the power of force, or the help of governments, 
and in spite of them, they did convert vast multitudes of idolaters 
from a senseless worship of stocks and stones, to the worship of 
the one living and true God — a thing never done by the preachers 
of any other religion before or since. 

2. That without the help of power or civil law, and solely by 
moral and spiritual means, they did persuade multitudes of licen- 
tious heathens to give up their vices, and obey the pure precepts 
of the morality contained in their Epistles — a thing never done by 
the preachers of any other religion before or since. 

3. That these converts were so firmly persuaded of the truth of 
their new religion, that, with the choice of life and worldly honor, 
or a death of infamy and torture before them, multitudes deliber- 
ately chose to suffer torture and death rather than renounce the be- 
lief in one God, obedience to his laws, and the hope of eternal life 

111 



16 IS THE GOSPEL FACT OR FABLE. 

through Jesus Christ, which they had learned from the sermons 
and letters of these Apostles — a thing never done by the profes- 
sors of any other religion before or since. * 

4. The faith which produced such an illumination of their 
minds ; which caused such a blessed change in their lives ; which 
filled them with joy and hope, and enabled them even to despise 
torture and death, was briefly this : " That Christ died for our 
sins, according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that 
he rose again on the third day, according to the Scriptures, that 
he ascended up into heaven, and will come again to judge the 
world, and reward every man according to his works, and that 
whosoever believes these things in his heart, and confesses them 
with his mouth, shall be saved ; and he that believeth them not, 
shall be damned." 

It is a fact, then, indisputably proved by history, that the New 
Testament does teach a religion which can enlighten men's minds, 
reform their lives, give peace to their consciences, and enable them 
to meet death with a joyful hope of life eternal. It has done these 
things in times past, and is doing them now. These are its un- 
doubted fruits. Header, this faith may be yours. It will work 
the same results in you as it has done in others. Like causes ever 
produce like effects. Jesus waits to deliver you from your sins, to 
fill you with joy and peace in believing, and make you abound in 
hope, by the power of the Holy Ghost. He has promised, if you 
will ask it, "I will give them a heart to know me that I am the 
Lord," 



* The sufferings of the Jews, under Antiochus, are no exception. They suffered for 
their faith in the true God, the Messiah to come, and a resurrection to life eternal. 






No. 28. 

CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES! 



u That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our 
eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of 
the Word of Life — that which we have seen and heard, declare we 
unto you." — 1 John, i : 1. 

We have seen that the companions of Jesus wrote the books 
of the New Testament — that their statements of the existence, 
worship, morals, and faith of the Christian church are confirmed 
by their enemies, and that multitudes of heathens were turned from 
vice to virtue by the belief of the testimony of these men — they 
testified that Jesus Christ did many wonderful miracles — died for 
our sins, and rose again from the dead — that they saw, and heard, 
and felt his body, and ate, and drank, and conversed with him for 
forty days after his resurrection — that he ascended up to heaven 
in their sight — that he sent them to tell the world that he will come 
again in the clouds of heaven, with his mighty angels, to judge the 
living and the dead — that he who believes these things and is bap- 
tized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. 
This is their statement. The question is, Can we believe them ? 

1. The first thing which strikes us in their testimony is, that it 
6tands out utterly different from all other religions. There is 
nothing in the world like it, not even its counterfeits. The great 
central fact of Christianity — that Christ died for our sins, and rose 
again from the dead — stands absolutely alone in the history of 
religions. The priests of Baal, Brahma, or Jupiter, never dreamed 
of such a thing. The prophets of Mohammedanism, Mormonism, 
or Pantheism, have never attempted to imitate it. The great 
object of all counterfeit Christians is to deny it. 

There is no instance in the whole world's history of any other 
religion ever producing the same effects. We demand any other 
instance of men destitute of wealth, arms, power, and learning, 
converting multitudes of lying, lustful, murdering idolaters, into 
honest, peaceable, virtuous Christians, simply by prayer and 
preaching. When the infidel tells us of the rapid spread of Mo- 
hammedanism and Mormonism — -impostures which enlist disciples 
8 113 



Z CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

"by promising free license to lust, robbery and murder, and retain 
them by the terror of the scimeter and the rifle ball — which reduce 
mankind to the most abject servitude, and womankind to the most 
debasing concubinage — which have turned the fairest regions of 
the earth to a wilderness, and under whose blighting influence 
Commerce, arts, science, industry, comfort, and the human race 
itself, have withered away — he simply insults our common sense, 
by ignoring the difference between backgoing vice and ongoing 
virtue; or acknowledges that he knows as little about Mohamme- 
danism, as he does about Christianity. The gospel stands alone 
in its doctrines, singular in its operation, unequaled in its success. 
2. The next important point for consideration is, that the Christ- 
ianity preached by Christ and his Apostles is a whole — a single 
system, which we must either take or leave — believe entirely, or 
entirely reject as an imposture. There is no middle ground for 
you to occupy. It is all true, or all false. For instance, you can 
not take one of Paul's epistles and say, " this is true," and take 
another of the same man's letters, containing the very same 
religion, and say, "this is false." If you accept the very briefest 
of Paul's letters, that to Philemon, containing only thirteen 
sentences on private business, you accept eleven distinct asser- 
tions of the authority, grace, love, and divinity of our Lord. 
Nor can you say you will accept Peter's letters and reject Paul's ; 
for you will find the very same facts asserted by the one as by the 
other ; and moreover, Peter endorses " all the epistles of ou? 
beloved brother Paul" as on the same pedestal of authority with 
the other Scriptures. You can not say, " I will accept the letters 
and reject the history," for the letters have no meaning without 
the history. They are founded upon it, and assume or allege its 
facts on every page. Were the gospels lost, we could collect a 
good account of the birth, teaching, death, resurrection, ascension, 
and almighty power of the Lord Christ from Paul's epistles ; and 
these letters are just as confident in alleging the miraculous part 
of the history as the gospels themselves. Neither can you gain 
any advantage by saying, "I accept the gospels, but reject the 
letters," for there is not a doctrine of the New Testament which is 
not taught in the very first of them, the gospel by Matthew. 
Further, the gospels contain the most solemn authentication of the 
commissions of the Apostles, so that whosoever rejects their teach- 
114 



CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 3 

ing, brings upon himself guilt equal to that of rejecting Christ 
himself. " Lo, I am with you alway" — "He that receiveth you 
receiveth me, and he that receiveth me receiveth him that sent 
me " — " Whosoever will not receive you, nor hear your words, 
when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of 
your feet. Verily I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for 
the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for 
that city." 

It is, if possible, more absurd to attempt to dissect the morality 
of the gospel from its history, and to say, "We are willing to 
receive the Christian code of morals as a very excellent rule of 
life, and to regard Jesus as a rare example of almost superhuman 
virtue, but we must consider the narrative of supernatural events 
interwoven with it as mythological," i. e., false. Which is much 
the same as to say, " We will be very happy to receive your friend 
if he will only cut his head off." Of what possible use would the 
Christian code of morals be without the authority of Christ, the 
lawgiver ? If he possessed no divine authority, what right has he 
to control your inclination or mine? And if he will never return 
to inquire whether men obey or disobey his law, who will regard 
it? Do you suppose the world will be turned upside down, and 
reformed, by a little good advice ? Nay, verily, the world has had 
trial of that vanity long enough. "We must all appear before the 
judgment seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things 
done in the body, according to that he hath done, whether it be 
good or bad. Knowing, therefore, the terrors of the Lord, we 
persuade men." 

Take away the miraculous and supernatural from the gospel 
history, and there is nothing left for you to accept. There is no 
natural history nor worldly code of morality in it. It is wholly 
the history of a supernatural person, and every precept of his 
morality comes with a divine sanction. Further, you know nothing 
of either his life or his morality but from the gospel history, and 
if the record of the miracles which occupy three-fourths of the 
gospels be false, what reason have *you to give any credit to the 
remainder? For, as the German commentator, De Wette, well says, 
" The only means of acquaintance with a history is the narrative 
we possess concerning it, and beyond that narrative the interpreter 
can not go. In these. Bible records, the narrative reports to us 

115 



4 CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

only a supernatural course of events, which we must either receive 
or reject. If we reject the narrative, we know nothing at all about 
the event, and we are not justified in allowing ourselves to invent 
a natural course of events of which the narrative is totally silent." 
So, you see, you can not make a Christ to suit your taste, but must 
just take the Christ of the gospel, or reject him. 

If you reject the testimony of Christ and his Apostles as false, 
and say you can not believe them in matters of fact, how can you 
respect their morality ? Of all the absurditios of modern infidelity, 
the respectful language generally used by its advocates in speakng 
of Christ and his Apostles, is the most inconsistent. He claimed 
to be a Divine Person, and professed to work miracles. The infidel 
eays he was not a Divine Person, and wrought no miracles. The 
consequence is unavoidable — such a pretender is a blasphemous 
impostor. And yet they speak of him as " a model man," an 
" exemplar of every virtue." What! — an impostor a model man? 
A blasphemer and liar an exemplar of every virtue ? Is that the 
infidel's notion of virtue? Why, the devils were more consistent 
in their commendations of his character, "We know thee who thou 
art, the Holy One of God." Let our modern enemies of Christ 
learn consistency from their ancient allies. We have also learned 
from our Master to refuse all hypocritical, half-way professions of 
respect for his character and teachings from those whose business 
is to prove him a deceiver, and whose object in speaking respect- 
fully of such a one, can only be to gain a larger audience, and a 
readier entrance for their blasphemy among his professed disciples. 
From every man who professes respect for Christ's character and 
for the morality which he and his Apostles taught, we demand a 
. straightforward answer to the questions: " When he declared him- 
self the Son of God, the Judge of the living and the dead, did he 
tell the truth, or did he lie? When he promised to attest hia 
Divine Commission by rising from the dead on the third day, had 
he any such power, or did he only mean to play a juggling im- 
posture? Is Jesus the Christ the Son of the Living God, or a 
deceiver I" There is no middle ground. He that is not with him 
is against him. 

The case is just the same with regard to the witnesses of hia 
miracles, death, and resurrection. They either give a true relation 
of these things, or they have manufactured a series of falsehoods. 
116 



CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HfS APOSTLES. 5 

How can we believe anything from persons so habituated to lying 
as the narrators of the mighty works of Jesus must be, if those 
mighty works were never performed ? How can we accept their 
code of morals if we refuse to believe them when they .speak of 
matters of fact ? Is it possible to respect men as moral teachers, 
whom we have convicted of forging stories of miracles that never 
occurred, and confederating together to impose a lying superstition 
on the world ? For this is plainly the very point and center of the 
question about the truth of the Bible, and I am anxious you should 
see it clearly. A fair statement of this question is half the argu- 
ment. The question then is simply this, Was Jesus really the 
Divine Person he claimed to be, or was he a blasphemous im- 
postor ? When the Apostles unitedly and solemnly testified that 
they had seen him after he was risen from the dead, that they ate 
and drank with him, that their hands had handled his body, that 
they conversed with him for forty days, and saw him go up to 
heaven, did they tell the truth, or were they a confederated band of 
liars ? There is no reason for any other supposition. They could 
not possibly be deceived themselves in the matters they relate. 
They knew perfectly whether they were true or not. We are not 
talking about matters of dogma, about which there might be room 
for difference of opinion, but about matters of fact — about what 
men say they saw, and heard, and felt — about which no man of 
common sense could possibly be mistaken. " That which we have 
seen with our eyes, which we have heard, which we have looked 
upon, and our hands have handled of the Word of Life — that 
which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you." Such is 
their language. We must either take it as truth, or reject it as 
falsehood. It is utter nonsense to talk of the intense subjectivity 
of the Jewish mind, and ihe belief of the Apostles, that the Mes- 
siah would do wonders Avhen he came, and the powerful impressions 
produced by the teaching of Jesus on their minds. We are not 
talking about impressions on their minds, but about impressions 
produced on their eyes, and ears, and hands. Did these men tell 
the truth when they told the world that they did eat and drink 
with Jesus after he rose from the dead, or did they lie ? That is 
the question. 

3. It is a hard matter to lie well. A liar has need of a good 
memory, else he will contradict himself before he writes far. And 

117 



6 CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

he needs to be very well posted up in the matters of names, dates, 
places, manners and customs, else he -will contradict some well 
known facts, and so expose his forgery to the world. Thereforo 
writers of forgeries avoid all such things as much as possible, and 
as surely as they venture on specifications of that sort, they are 
detected. A man who is conscious of writing a book of falsehoods, 
does not begin on this wise: " .Now in the fifteenth year of the 
reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judea, 
and Herod being Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip Te* 
trarch of Iturea and of the regions of Trachonitis, and Lysanias 
Tetrarch of Abilene, Annas and Caiphas being high priests, the 
word of God came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilder- 
ness." Here in one sentence are twenty historical, geographical, 
political, and genealogical references, every one of which we can 
confirm by references to secular historians. The enemies of the 
Lord have utterly failed in their attempts to disprove one out of 
the hundreds of such statements in the New Testament. The only 
instance of any public political event recorded in the gospel, said 
not to be confirmed by the fragments of secular history we possess, 
is Luke's account of a census of the Roman Empire, ordered by 
Augustus Caesar. Were it so that Luke stood alone in his mention 
of this, surely his credit as a historian would be as good for this 
fact, as the credit of Tacitus, when he states matters of which 
Suetonius makes no mention, or of Pliey, when he relates things 
not recorded by Tacitus. But we can account for the want of cor- 
roborative history in this instance, when we know that all the 
history of Dion Cassius, from the consulships of Antistius and 
Balbus to those of Messala and Cinna — that is, for five years 
before and five years after the birth of Christ — is lost ; as also 
Livy's history of the same period. It is certain that some one did 
record the fact, for Suidas, in his lexicon upon the word apographe, 
says, "that Augustus sent twenty select men into all the provinces 
of the empire to take a census, both of men and property, and 
commanded that a just proportion of the latter should be brought 
into the imperial treasury. And this was the first census." 

To object to the gospel history, that every thing contained in it 

of the doings of Christ and his Apostles in Judea, is not recorded 

by the historians of Greece and Italy, is much the same as to say 

that there are a multitude of facts recorded in D'Aubigne's History 

118 



CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 7 

of the Reformation in Germany, of which Hume and Macaulay 
make no mention in their histories of England. How should they 
— treating of different countries, and for the most part of different 
periods, and writing civil and not church history ? Does any body 
go to Macaulay to look for the history of the Westminster As- 
eembly, or to Bancroft for an account of the Great Revival in New 
England? Or is the veracity of Baillie or Edwards suspected, 
because political history does not concern itself much about re- 
ligion? It is enough, that not a single statement of the gospel 
history has ever been disproved. 

I might give you quotations from the enemies of the Christian 
faith, from Josephus the Jew, and Celsus and Porphyry, heathen 
philosophers, and from the Emperor Julian, the apostate — who, 
having been raised a Christian, became a heathen, and used all his 
ingenuity to overturn the religion of Christ — expressly admitting 
the principal miracles recorded in the gospel. But I attach no 
such importance to the testimony of this class of persons as to 
suppose that it should be placed, for one moment, on a level with 
the testimony of the Apostles, or that their testimony to the facts 
of the life and death of Christ needs any confirmation from such 
witnesses. We have such overwhelming evidence of the sincerity 
and truth of the witnesses chosen by God to bear testimony to the 
resurrection of Christ, as we never can have of the credibility of 
any secular historian whatever. 

You will remember that these are the writers whose accounts of 
the existence, the faith and worship, the numbers and morals of 
the Christian Church, we have seen so strikingly confirmed by 
their enemies ; and we now inquire, can we believe the other part 
of their history to be as true ? These are the men who taught the 
heathen a pure christian morality, one principal article of which 
was, " Lie not one to another, seeing ye have put off the old man 
with his deeds " — " All liars shall have their portion in the lake 
that burneth with fire and brimstone ** — and we are to inquire if 
they themselves lied — lied publicly, lied repeatedly — if the very 
business of their lives was to propagate falsehood, and if they 
died with a lie in their right hands. You will remember that we 
proved conclusively that the belief of the death and resurrection 
of Jesus did turn immense multitudes of wicked men to a life of 
virtue, and now we are to inauire if the belief of a lie produced 

119 



8 CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

this blessed result, and whether, if so, there he any such thing as 
truth in the world, or any use in it ? 

4. Of no other series of events of ancient history do we possess 
the same number of records by contemporary historians, as of the 
life, death, and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. We have four 
direct systematic memoirs of him by four of his companions ; and 
we have a collection of letters by four others, in which the events 
of the memoirs are continually referred to. At the mouth of two 
or three witnesses, any man's property and life will be disposed of 
in a court of justice, but here we have the testimony of eight eye- 
witnesses of the facts they relate, and they refer to five hundred 
other persons, the greater part of whom were then alive, who had 
also seen and heard Christ after his resurrection. These eight 
persons give us their separate and independent statements of those 
things they deemed worthy of record in the life and death of Christ, 
and of the sayings and doings of several of his friends and ene- 
mies. Now every person knows that it is impossible to make two 
crooked boughs tally, or two false witnesses agree. You never saw 
two lying reports of any considerable number of transactions agree, 
unless the one was copied from the other. 

It is evident that the gospels were not copied from each other, 
for they often relate different events, and when they relate the 
same occurrence, each man relates those parts of it which he 
saw himself, and which impressed him most. Yet the utmost 
ingenuity of infidelity has utterly failed to make them contradict 
each other in any particular. Here are eight witnesses to the 
truth of the same story, four of whom in their letters make 
occasional allusions to the facts of the history as being perfectly 
well known, and therefore needing only to be alluded to, yet these 
cursory references fit into the history with every mark of truth- 
fulness. Does the history of Matthew, written at Jerusalem, tell 
us that Jesus took Peter, and James, and John up into a high 
mountain apart, and was transfigured before them ? Peter, in his 
letter, written from Babylon says, "We were eye-witnesses of his 
majesty. We were with him in the holy mount/' 2 Pet. ii : 16. 
If the history tells how Paul was beaten and cast into prison at 
Philippi, and his feet made fast in the stocks, and that, neverthe- 
less, he manfully defended his birthright as a Roman citizen, and 
made the tyrannical magistrates humble themselves, and apologise 
120 



CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 9 

for their illegal conduct, we find Paul himself, in a letter to a 
neighboring church, appealing to their knowledge of the facts, 
" that after we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, 
as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto 
you the gospel of God with much contention. For our exhortation 
was not of deceit, nor of uncleanness, nor in guile. For neither at 
any time used we flattering words, as ye know, nor a cloak for covet- 
ousness." 1 Thess. ii: 2. Hundreds of such undesigned coin- 
cidences may be found in the New Testament, confirming the 
yeracity of the several historians and letter writers, and giving 
that impression of the naturalness and truth of the story, which 
can neither be described nor disputed. The reader who desires to 
prosecute this interesting branch of the evidences of Christianity, 
will find an ample collection of these coincidences in Paley's 
Horse Paulinse. 

This agreement of independent writers is the more remarkable, 
as the writers were persons of very various degrees of education, 
of different professions and ranks of life, born in different countries, 
and writing from various places in Italy, Greece, Palestine, and 
Assyria, without any communication with each other. Matthew 
was an officer of customs in Galilee — Mark a Hebrew citizen of 
Jerusalem — Luke a Greek physician of Antioch — James and John 
owned and sailed a fishing smack on Lake Tiberias — Jude left his 
thirty-nine acres of land, worth nine thousand denarii, to be farmed 
by his children when he went forth to preach the gospel — and 
college-bred Paul carried his sturdy independence in his breast, 
and his sail needles in his pocket, and dictated epistles, and cut 
out marquees and lug-sails in the tent factory of Aquila, Paul & 
Co., at Corinth. Several of his letters were written in a dungeon 
in Rome ; the last of Peter's is dated at Babylon ; Matthew's gospel 
was penned at Jerusalem, and John's gospel and epistles were 
written at Ephesus. The agreement of eight such witnesses, of 
such different pursuits, and so scattered over the world, in the rela- 
tion of the same story, in all its leading particulars, together with 
their variety of style and manner, and their various relations of 
minor incidents, yet without a single contradiction, are most con- 
vincing proofs that they all tell truth. Nothing but truth could be 
thus told without contradiction. 

The fact that some considerable difficulties and many minor 

121 



10 CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

obscurities in these brief though pregnant narratives, prevent the 
combination of eight accounts so independent in their sources, and 
various in their style, and design, and auditors — into a flowing 
historical novel — a homogeneous mass, rounded and squared to 
our ideas of mathematical precision — is only an additional proof 
of their truth to nature, which abhors mathematical as much as 
truth does rhetorical figures. Like the variety of expression used 
by American, German, French, and Polish witnesses in our courts 
of justice, testifying the same facts in their native idioms, though 
in English words, the apparent discrepancy but actual harmony 
becomes the most decisive test of the absence of any collusion, and 
consequently of the verity of the facts which such various witnesses 
unite in testifying. Especially will any such apparent discrepancy 
resolve itself into our own unskilfullness or ignorance, when we 
remember that the mists of ages, and the drapery of a strange 
language, and world-wide removal of residence, and the turning 
of the world upside down by the progress of Christian civilization, 
and our consequent ignorance of the thousand little details of every 
day life, well known to the writer and his immediate readers, and 
of the force of expressive idioms, perfectly familiar to them — have 
rendered us not near so capable of detecting inaccuracies, as those 
contemporary writers and opponents, who allowed them — if they 
existed — to pass unchallenged. Like those antique coins, whose 
rust-dimmed and abbreviated inscriptions exercise the patience and 
historic lore of the antiquarian — though neither are needed to 
declare the precious material — this very rust of antiquity, through 
which his patience has penetrated, becomes one of the inimitable 
marks of historic verity. Every year throws some new light on 
texts difficult to us from our ignorance of those manners, customs, 
names, and places, which infidel malice and Christian piety have 
combined to explore, and from the ruins of Nineveh and the sepul- 
chres of Egypt we receive unlooked-for testimonies to the minute 
accuracy of the penmen of the Bible. 

5. The manner in which the Apostles published their testimony 
to the world, bears every mark of truthfulness. Deception and 
forgery skulk and try to spread themselves at first in holes and 
corners, but he that doeth truth cometh to the light. Had the 
Apostles been conscious of falsehood, would they have dared to 
assert that Jesus was risen from the dead in the very streets of the 
122 



CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 11 

city where he was crucified — in the temple, the most public place 
of resort of the Jews who saw him crucified — and to the teeth of 
the very men who put him to death ? If conscious of falsehood, 
would they have dared, before the chief priests, and the council, 
and all the senate of Israel, to assert that " The God of our fathers 
raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath 
God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, to 
give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. And we are his 
witnesses of these things, and so is also the Holy Ghost which God 
hath given to them that obey him." Acts v: 30. Would Paul, had 
he been conscious that he was relating falsehood, have dared to 
appeal to the judge, before whom he was on trial for his life, as 
one who knew the notoriety of these facts, " For the king knoweth 
of these things, before whom also I speak freely ; for I am per- 
suaded that none of these things are hidden from him : for this 
thing was not done in a corner." Acts xxvi : 26. Would such 
appeals have been suffered to pass uncontradicted had the state- 
ments of the Apostles been false ? 

The boldness of their manner, however, of telling their story, 
is little, compared with the boldness of the design which they 
had in view in telling it ; which was nothing less than to convert 
the world. Now the idea of proselyting other nations to a new 
religion, was absolutely unknown to the world at that time. The 
heathens never dreamed of any such thing. They would some- 
times add a new god to their old Pantheon, but the idea of turn- 
ing a nation to the worship of new deities was never before heard 
of. The Jews were so indignant at the project, that when Paul 
hinted it to them, they cried, "Away with such a fellow from 
the earth, for it is not fit that he should live." And this new 
and strange idea, of conquering the world for a crucified man, is 
taken up by a few private citizens, who resolve to overturn the 
craft by which priests have their wealth, and to bring the 
kingdoms of the world to become the kingdoms of our Lord 
and of his Christ. 

Impostors would never have appealed to their power of working 
miracles as the Apostles did ; nor could enthusiasts have done so 
without instant exposure. It is remarkable, that while in address- 
ing those who believed their Divine Commission, they rarely allude 
to it, (fourteen of the epistles make no allusion to apostolic mir- 

123 



12 CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

acles), but dwell on a subject of far greater importance — a holy 
life— they never hesitate to confront a Simon Magus, or a schis- 
matical church at Corinth, or a persecuting high priest and sanhe- 
drim with this power of the Holy Ghost. " Tongues," says Paul, 
" are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to them that believe 
not," and this is true of all other miracles. This marks the differ- 
ence between real miracles and those of pretenders, who have 
never attempted to establish a new religion by them, or to convert 
unbelievers hostile to their claims and able to examine them, with- 
out immediate exposure. But you never heard of an impostor 
standing up before the tribunal of his judges and alleging the 
miraculous cure of a well known public beggar, lame from his 
mother's womb, whom they had seen at the church gate every 
Sabbath for forty years, and bringing the man into court after such 
a fashion as this, "If we this day be examined of the good deed 
done unto the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, 
be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that 
by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, 
whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man 
stand before you whole." Such an appeal was unanswerable 
"Beholding the man that was healed standing with them, they 
could say nothing against it." Nay, they were compelled to 
acknowledge "that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by 
them is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem — we can not 
deny it." Acts iv. 

The denial of the miracles of the Gospel is a modern invention 
of the enemy. The Scribes and Priests, Emperors and Philoso- 
phers of the first centuries, who had the best opportunity of proving 
their falsehood, were unable to do so. The persecutors and apos- 
tates, whose malice against the church knew no bounds, never 
dared to utter a charge of deception against the Apostles. Why, 
then, you ask, did they not all become Christians ? Because mira- 
cles can not convert any man against his will. Christianity is not- 
merely a belief in miracles, but the love of Christ and a life of 
holiness. There are many readers of this tract who would not 
turn from their sins if all the dead in Spring Grove Cemetery 
would rise to-morrow to warn them from hell. God does not intend 
to force any man to become a Christian. He just gives evidence 
enough to try you, whether you will deal honestly and fairly 
124 



CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 13 

with your own soul and your God, and if you are determined 
to hate Christ and his holy religion, you shall never want a 
plausible excuse for unbelief; as it is written, "Unto them 
which are disobedient, Christ is a stone of stumbling and a rock 
of offence." These ancient enemies of Christ acknowledged the 
reality of his miracles, but attributed them to magical power, 
or the help of Satan. The Jews said that he had acquired the 
power of miracles by learning to pronounce the incommunicable 
name of God. Modern infidels deny all his miracles save the 
greatest — the turning of men from their sins. They can not deny 
that — they can not ascribe it to the power of Satan or of magic, 
for they do not believe in either — but they follow as nearly in the 
footsteps of their fathers as possible, when they tell us that multi- 
tudes of men, in every age, and in every land, have been turned 
from falsehood to truth by the belief of a lie, and from vice to 
virtue by the example of an impostor ! 

6. But the strongest proof of the truth of the facts of the gospel, 
is the existence, the labors and sufferings of the Apostles them- 
selves. Nobody denies that such men lived, and preached, and 
were persecuted on account of their preaching that Jesus died and 
rose again. Now, if this was a falsehood, what motive had they 
to tell it ? It was very displeasing to their rulers who had crucified 
him, and who had every inclination to give them the same treat- 
ment. To preach another king, one Jesus, to the Romans, was 
to bring down the power of the empire upon them. Nothing could 
be more absurd in the eyes of the Grecian philosophers than to 
speak of the resurrection of the body. Nor could any plan be 
devised more certain to arouse the fury of the pagan priesthood, 
than to denounce the craft by which they had their wealth, and to 
preach that they are no gods which are made by hands. The most 
degraded wretch who perishes by the hand of the hangman, is not 
so contemptible in our eyes, as the crucified malefactor was in the 
eyes of the Roman people ; nor could any thing more disagreeable 
to the Jewish nation be invented, than the declaration that the 
Gentiles should become partakers of the kingdom of God. What 
then should induce any man in his senses to provoke such an 
opposition to a new religion, and to make it so contemptible and 
disagreeable to those whom he sought to convert, if he were manu- 
facturing a lie to gain power and popularity ? 

125 



14 CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

The religion they preached was not adapted to please sensual 
men, nor to allow its preachers in sensual gratifications. " Our 
exhortation," says Paul — and every reader of the New Testament 
knows that he says truth — "Our exhortation was not of deceit, nor 
of uncleanness, nor of guile." Infidels admit that they preached 
a pure morality. But it is a long time since men learned the 
proverb, " Physician heal thyself." " Thou that preachest a man 
should not steal, dost thou steal ? Thou that sayest a man should 
not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery ? Thou that ab- 
horrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege?" It could not, then, be 
to obtain license for lust that these men preached holiness. 

There is only one other conceivable motive which should induce 
men to confederate together for the propagation of falsehood — the 
design of making money by it. But their new religion made no 
provision for any such thing. One of their first acts was to desire 
the church to elect deacons who might manage its money matters, 
and allow them to give themselves wholly to prayer and to the 
ministry of the word. Twenty-five years after that they could 
appeal to the world that " Even to this present hour, we, (the 
Apostles,) both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, 
and have no certain dwelling place, and labor working with our 
hands ; being reviled, we bless ; being persecuted, we suffer it : 
we are counted as the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all 
things to this day." Their book opens with the story of their 
Master's birth in a stable, with the manger for his cradle, and one 
of its last pictures is that of his venerable Apostle chained in a 
dungeon, and begging his friend to bring his old cloak from Troas, 
and to do his diligence to come before winter. 

Unpopular, pure, and penniless, if the gospel story were not 
true, how could it have had preachers ? They at least believed it. 

The last and most convincing testimony which any man can 
give to the truth of a statement of fact, is to suffer rather than 
deny it. Many have wondered why God allowed his dear servants 
to suffer so much persecution in the first ages of the church. One 
principal reason was to give future ages an irresistible proof of 
the sincerity and faithfulness of the witnesses for Christ. The 
Apostles lived lives of persecution and suffering for the name of 
Jesus — sufferings which they might have avoided if they had only 
abstained from preaching any more in this name. But, said they, 
126 



CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 15 

" We can not but speak the things we have seen and heard. One 
who had no personal acquaintance with Jesus, and whose first 
interview with him was while he was breathing out threatening 
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, is converted and 
called to be an Apostle ; and behold the prospect Jesus presents 
to him, "I will show him how great things he must suffer for my 
name." " The Holy Ghost testifieth, says Paul, that in every city 
bonds and afflictions abide me. Yet none of these things move 
me." That at least was a true prophecy. " Seven times," says 
Clement, " he was in bonds, he was whipt, he was stoned ; he 
preached both in the east and west, leaving behind him the glo- 
rious report of his faith, and so having taught the whole world 
righteousness, and for that end traveled even to the utmost bounds 
of the west, he at last suffered martyrdom by the command of the 
governors, and went to his holy place, having become a most 
eminent pattern of patience to all ages.* Hear his own appeal to 
those who envied his authority in the church, " Are they ministers 
of Christ, I am more : in labors more abundant, in stripes above 
measure,- in prisons more frequent, in deaths often. Of the Jews 
five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten 
with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night 
and a day I have been in the deep : in journeyings often, in perils 
of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, 
in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the 
wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; 
in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and 
thirst, in cold and nakedness." 1 Cor. ii : 23. 

Man can give no higher proof of his veracity, than a life such as 
this, unless it be to seal it with his blood ; and this crowning 
testimony to the truth the Apostles gave. Save the aged disciple, 
who, after torments worse than death, survived to address the 
persecuted church as — "Your companion in tribulation, and in 
the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ," they all suffered 
martyrdom for the truth of the gospel history. 

Let me again remind you that the gospel is not a collection of 
dogmas, but a relation of facts — that these twelve men did not 
preach the death and resurrection of Jesus, because they had read 
them in a creed, but because they had seen them with their own 
eyes — that they lived holy lives of toil, and hardship, and poverty, 

* Wake's Trans, of Clement, Ep. ad Cor. v. 

127 



16 CAN WE BELIEVE CHRIST AND HIS APOSTLES. 

and suffering, in preaching these facts to the world : and, that 
they died painful and shameful deaths, as martyrs for their truth. 
You admit these things. Then I demand of you, " What more 
could either God or man do to convince you of their truthfulness V 

The faithful and true witness himself has given you this last, 
undeniable, test of veracity. With the certainty of an ignominious 
death before him, he solemnly swears to the truth of this fact, and 
dies for it. " And the high priest answered and said unto him, I 
adjure thee by the living God, that thou tell us whether thou be 
the Christ, the Son of God ? Jesus saith unto him, thou hast said. 
Hereafter ye shall see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of 
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." 

Unbeliever, are you prepared to meet him there, and prove him 
a perjured impostor? 



No. 39. 

PROPHECY. 



"In- fifty years all Europe will be either Cossack or Repub- 
lican." So prophesied the most sagacious of modern politicians, 
without any pretence to Diyine inspiration, other than the inspira- 
tion of genius, when calculating the prospects of the future by the 
light of his past experience. "All genius is prophetic, inasmuch 
as it grasps general laws, universal in their range, and invariable 
in their operation, the application of which to particular events 
constitutes prediction. The Hebrew prophets were sagacious ob- 
servers of human nature, and made very shrewd calculations of 
the future progress of events, by a careful induction of the invari- 
able laws of nature from the history of the past. But there was 
nothing supernatural in that. Every poet, philosopher, and poli- 
tician is more or less of a prophet. Men of profound genius are 
rare in any department of science, and ignorance ascribes to super- 
natural inspiration the sagacity derived from extensive observation; 
but philosophy traces to the same source the inspiration of Moses 
and Solon, of Apollo and Ezekiel, of Newton and Napoleon." So 
sa} 7 s the modern sceptic. 

This prediction of Napoleon's is a fair specimen of the oracles 
of human sagacity, as well as a test of the wisdom of those philos- 
ophers who risk their eternal destiny on the sagacity of a man 
ignorant of his own fate one week ahead, and peril their souls on 
the chance that, ten years hence — when the affairs of Europe may 
be of as little consequence to them as they are now to Napoleon — 
Europe will bring forth from the throes of revolution either a 
despotism or a republic. No chance, it seems, of a birth of twins 
falsifying this sage prediction. 

Suppose, however, that during the six thousand years during 
which statesmen have gambled with the liberties of mankind, as 
many as half-a-dozen should have guessed the shape of some com- 
ing event from the shadow which it cast before it — as Cayotte is 
reported to have predicted the fate of Charles for Louis the XVI., 
and the atrocities of the Parisian rabble during: the Reig-n of 
Terror — what then ? Is such a guess of any use to the world ? 
Does it, or should it, command any respect when uttered ? Does 
9 129 



Z PROPHECY. 

it profess to come from the Disposer of all events, as his seal 
authenticating any revelation of moral duty to man ? 

yes ! We are told by men who could not read one of Apollo's 
oracles to save their lives, nor recite one of Isaiah's prophecies to 
save their souls — Apollo's oracles no less than Isaiah's were in- 
spired. Could such persons be prevailed upon to read carefully 
any single prophetic book of Scripture, with the historic facts to 
which it refers, or even the briefest abridgment of these facts, such 
as that contained in Scott's, or the Comprehensive Commentary, 
they would not thus expose their ignorance alike of heathen and 
Christian oracles. 

The differences between them are too numerous to be easily 
enumerated. The oracles of the heathen are always sources of 
gain to their prophets. The ancient Pythoness must have a heca- 
tomb, the writing medium a dollar, and the modern Pythoness of 
the platform a dime. But under the inspiration of God even a 
Balaam becomes honest, and the leprosy of Naaman marks the 
sordid Gehazi and his seed for ever. 

The oracles of the heathen are always immoral in their ten- 
dency. From the first spiritual communication through the ser- 
pent medium in the tree of knowledge, down to the last spiritual 
marriage rapped out by the oracle, they are all in favor of pride, 
ambition, lying, lust, and murder. The oracles of God begin with 
a prohibition of curiosity, pride, covetousness, and theft: "In the 
day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." And they are uni- 
formly of the same tenor, forbidding, reproving, threatening vice, 
and encouraging virtue, down to the last : " Blessed are they that 
do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, 
and may enter in through the gates into the city; for without 
are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and 
idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." 

This last mark of falsehood belongs to all heathen oracles, from 
the first utterance by the serpent down to the last response rapped 
out by the medium. Take any one heathen oracle of which we 
have any definite account — and the number is very small — and 
you will find that, if it is not " as equivocal as Apollo," it is false. 
For instance, infidels very confidently refer to the augury of Vettius 
Valens, that, " if it be true, as historians say, that Romulus saw 
twelve vultures at the founding of Rome, that signified that it 
should exist twelve centuries." It very properly begins with an if, 
130 



PROPHECY. 3 

for the story of Romulus and the vultures is exceedingly apocry- 
phal. But whether the story be false or no, the augury certainly 
ife. If it refers to the material city then building, it was false. 
Brennus, the Gaul, burned it to the ground before it was four 
centuries old. If it prophesied the permanence of the political 
constitution, every school-boy knows that within twelve centuries 
half a dozen revolutions falsified the augury. If it referred to the 
ultimate duration of the city of that name, or of the Roman people, 
it is self-evidently false ; for now, after the lapse of twenty-six 
centuries, Rome is larger, its territory wider, and its people more 
numerous, than for centuries after Romulus saw the twelve vul- 
tures. Yet men who have read Roman history present Vettius 
Valens as a prophet. It is written, " He frustrateth the tokens of 
the liars." 

But it is objected that "the prophecies of Scripture are as obscure 
as the oracles ; are all wrapped up in symbolical language ; that 
many of them have a double meaning ; that no two interpreters 
are agreed as to the meaning of the unfulfilled predictions; and that 
no man can certainly foretell any future event by means of them." 
The objection proceeds on a total mistake of the nature and de- 
sign of prophecy, which is not to unvail the future for the grati- 
fication of your curiosity, but to give you direction in your present 
duty — precisely the reverse of the oracles referred to, which pro- 
posed to tell their votaries what would happen — but rarely con- 
descended to direct them how to behave themselves so that things 
might happen well. The larger part of the prophecies of Scrip- 
ture is taken up with directions to men how to regulate their con- 
duct, rather than with information how God means to regulate his. 
There is just as much of the latter as is sufficient to show us that 
the God who gave the Bible governs the world, and even that 
always urges the same moral lesson: "Say ye to the righteous that 
it shall be well with him, for he shall eat the fruit of his doings." 
"Woe to the wicked; it shall be- ill with him, for the reward of 
his hands shall be given him." Whenever a vision relates to what 
God will do in the distant future, it is dark and mysterious ; but 
whenever any directions are given necessary for our immediate 
duty, then the." vision is written and made plain on tables, that he 
may run that readeth it." The possessors of a clearly engrossed 
title-deed have surely no reason to complain that the president has 
chosen that his seal appended to it shall consist of a device, which, 

131 



4 PROPHECY. 

by reason of its being hard to read and harder to imitate, secures 
both himself and them against forgery. The double meaning of 
some prophecies is a double check. So far from resembling the 
equivocations of heathen oracles, by taking either of two opposite 
events for a fulfilment, they require both of two corresponding 
ones ; and some prophecies, like a master key, open several succes- 
sive events, and thus show that the same mind planned both locks 
and key. When the prediction is fulfilled all mystery vanishes, 
and men see plainly that thus it was written — that is to say, men 
who look — for the man who will not open his eyes will never see 
any thing that it concerns him to know. But the man who thinks 
that it concerns him so much to know what God will do with the 
world a hundred years after he is dead, that unless the prophecies 
of the Bible are all made plain to him, he will neither read God's 
word nor obey his law, may go on his own way. We expound no 
mysteries to such persons ; for it is written, " None of the wicked 
shall understand." 

As to the objection taken from the symbolical language of 
prophecy, and which seems to a number of our modern critics so 
weighty that they remove to the purely mythologic ground every 
thing " couched in symbolical language," and account nothing to 
be prediction unless "literal history written in advance" — I would 
merely ask* How is it possible to reveal heavenly things to earth- 
born men but by earthly figures? Do you know a single word in 
your own, or any other language to express a spiritual state or 
mental operation, that is not the name of some material state or 
physical operation, used symbolically? Heart, soul, spirit, idea, 
memory, imagination, inclination, &c, every one of them a figure 
of speech — a symbol. Nay, is there a letter in your own or in any 
other alphabet, that was not originally a picture of something? 
I demand to know in what way God or man could teach you to 
know anything you have never seen, but by either showing you a 
picture of it, or telling you what it is like ? That is simply by 
type or symbol ; and these are the only possible media of convey- 
ing heavenly truth, or future history to our minds. When, there- 
fore, the sceptic insists that prophecy be given literally in the style 
of history written in advance, he simply requires that God would 
make it utterly unintelligible. We can gather clear and definite 
ideas from the significant hieroglyphics of symbolic language, but 
the literalities of history written in advance would be worse to 
132 



PROPHECY. 5 

decipher than the arrow-headed inscriptions of Nineveh. Just 
imagine to yourself Alexander the Great reading Guizot, instead 
of Daniel ; or Hildreth, as being less mysterious than Ezekiel ; and 
meeting, for instance, such a record as this : " In the year of 
Christ 1847, the United States conquered Mexico, and annexed 
California." "In the year of Christ — what new Olympiad may 
that be?" he would say. "The United States of course means the 
States of the Achgen League, but on what shore of the Euxine may 
Mexico and California be found?" What information could Aris- 
totle gather from the record that, "In 1857, the Transatlantic 
Telegraph was in operation ?" Could all the augurs in the seven- 
hilled city have expounded to Julius Csesar the famous despatch, 
if intercepted in prophetic vision, " Sebastopol was evacuated last 
night, after enduring for three days an infernal firepf shot and 
shell ?" Nay, to diminish the vista to even two or three centuries, 
what could Oliver Cromwell, aided by the whole Westminster 
Assembly, have made of a prophetic vision of a. single newspaper 
paragraph of history written in advance, to inform them that, 
" Three companies of dragoons came down last night from Ber- 
wick to Southampton, by a special train, traveling 54J miles an 
hour, including stoppages, and embarked immediately on arrival. 
The fleet put to sea at noon, in the face of a full gale from the 
S. W. ?" Why, the intelligible part of this single paragraph would 
seem to them more impossible, and the unintelligible part more 
absurd, than all the mysterious symbols of the Apocalypse. 

The world has accepted God's symbols thousands of years ago, 
and it is too late in the day for our reformers to propose new laws 
of thought and forms of speech, to the human race. David's pro- 
phetic lyrics, and Christ's lovely parables, Isaiah's celestial anthems 
and Ezekiel's glorious symbols, Solomon's terse Proverbs, will be 
recited and admired, ages after the foggy abstractions of mystified 
metaphysicians have vanished from the earth. The Thirst of Pas- 
sion, The Cup of Pleasure, The Fountain of the Water of Life, The 
Blood of Murder, the Rod of Chastisement, The Iron Scepter, The 
Fire of Wrath, The Balance of Righteousness, The Sword of Justice, 
The Wheels of Providence, The Conservative Mountains, and The 
Raging Seas of Anarchy, The Golden, Brazen, and Iron Ages, will 
reflect their images in Truth's Mirror, and photograph their lessons 
on Memory's Tablet, while the mists of the "positive philosophy," 
" the absolute," and " the conditioned," float past unheeded, to 
the land of fcrgetfulness. God's prophetic symbols are the glorious 

133 



6 PROPHECY. 

embodiments of living truths, while man's philosophic abstractions 
are the melancholy ghosts of expiring nonsense. 

The prophetic symbols are sufficiently plain to be distinctly in- 
telligible after the fulfillment, as we shall presently see; suffi- 
ciently obscure to baffle presumptious curiosity before it. Had 
they been so written as to be fully intelligible beforehand, they 
must have interfered with man's free agency, by causing their 
own fulfillment. They hide the future sufficiently to make man 
feel his ignorance; they reveal enough to encourage faith in the 
God who rules it. 

The revelation of future events, however, is not the principal 
design of the prophecies of the Bible ; they bear witness to God's 
powerful present influence over the world now. For God's proph- 
ecy is not merely his foretelling something which will certainly 
happen at some future time, but over which he has no control — as 
an astronomer foretells an eclipse of the sun, but can neither 
hasten nor hinder it — but it is his revealing of a part of his plan 
of this world's affairs, to show that God, and not man, is the sov- 
ereign of this world. For this purpose he tells beforehand the 
actions which wicked men, of their own free will, will commit con- 
trary to his law, and the measures he will take to thwart their de- 
signs, and fulfill his own. Nay, he declares he will so manage 
matters that without their knowledge, and even contrary to their 
intentions, heathen armies and infidel scoffers shall serve his pur- 
poses and show his power; while yet they are as perfectly volun- 
tary in all their movements as if they, and not God, governed the 
world. Every fulfilled prophecy thus becomes an instance and 
evidence of a supernatural government; and is to a thinking mind 
a greater miracle than casting mountains into the sea. The style 
of prophecy corresponds to this design. It is not by any means 
apologetic or supplicating; but, on the contrary, majestic, con- 
vincing, and terrifying to the ungodly. 

" Remember this and show yourselves men. 

" Bring it again to mind, ye transgressors. 

" For I am God, and there is none else. 

" I am God, and there is none like me. 

"Declaring the end from the beginning, 

"And from ancient times the things that are not yet done, 

"Saying, 'Mr counsel shall stand, and I will do all my 

PLEASURE." * 

* Isaiah, chap. 46 ; 8-11. 

134 



PROPHECY. 7 

Infidels feel the power of this manifestation of God in his word ; 
and are driven to every possible denial of the fact, and evasion of 
the argument drawn from it. They feel instinctively that Bible 
prophecies are far more than mere predictions. They would rather 
endow every human being on earth with the power of predicting 
the future than allow the God of heaven that power of ruling 
the present which these prophecies assert. Hence the attempt to 
admit their predictive truth, and yet deny their Divine authority, 
by ascribing them to human sagacity. 

Transatlantic steam navigation has produced a remarkable 
change in the tone of infidel writers and speakers in regard to the 
prophecies of the Bible. You could not converse long with an 
infidel on this subject, a few years ago, until he would assure you, 
with all confidence, that the prophecies were all written after their 
fulfillment, and so were not prophecies at all. But now that trav- 
elers of all classes, scoffers, sailors, and doctors of divinity, scien- 
tific expeditions, and correspondents of daily newspapers, have 
flooded the world with undeniable attestations that many of them 
are receiving their fulfillment at this day, none but the most grossly 
ignorant and stupid attempt to deny that the prophecies of the 
Bible were written thousands of years since, and that many of 
them have since been accomplished ; and that so many have been 
fulfilled that their accomplishment cannot be ascribed to chance. 
But the force of the argument for the Divine inspiration of the 
prophets is met by the assertion that there is nothing super- 
natural in prophecy, and that it is only one form of the inspiration 
of genius. 

Calculating securely on that profound ignorance of the Bible 
which characterizes their followers, modern writers inform them 
that "none of the prophets ever uttered any distinct, definite, 
unambiguous prediction of any future event which has since taken 
place, which a man without a miracle could not equally well- pre- 
dict." It is alleged that the prophecies, in predicting the over- 
throw of the nations of antiquity, predicted nothing beyond the 
ken of human sagacity, enlightened by a careful study of the 
experience of the past and the invariable laws of nature — that it 
requires no inspiration to foretell the decay of perishing things — 
that the invariable progress of all things, empires as well as indi- 
viduals, is first upward, through a period of youthful vigor and 
energy, then onward through a period of ripe maturity, and then 

135 



8 PROPHECY. 

downward, through a gradual decay and final dissolution, to the 
inevitable grave. The world's history is but a history of the decline 
and fall of nations. 

I. Now, if this be true, it is an awful truth for the infidel, for 
it sweeps away the last vestige of a foundation of his hope for 
eternity. The only reason any unbeliever in Revelation could 
ever give, or that modern spiritualists do give, for their hope of a 
happy eternity, is the analogy of Nature — the alleged constant 
progress of all things toward perfection in this world. It is an 
awkward truth that individually we must die and the worms crawl 
over us ; but then the wretched fate of the individual was to be 
compensated by the glorious progress of the race onward and ever 
onwards and upward — from the fungus to the frog, and from the 
frog to the monkey, from the monkey to the man, from the noble 
savage wild in woods, to the pastoral tribe; thence to the empire 
and the federal republic ; and finally to the reign of individual 
and passional attraction, and union with the sum of all the intel- 
ligences of the universe, through a constant progress towards 
infinite perfection. 

But, alas ! it seems it was a false analogy, an ill- observed fact, 
a delusion ; the course of nature is all the other way. The ten- 
dency of all perishing things is not to perfection, but to perdition ; 
and it needs no inspiration to tell that man's loftiest towers and 
strongest cities and proudest empires will come to ruin ; or that 
the most polished, powerful, and populous nations of antiquity 
will dwindle down into Turks, Moors, and Egyptians. Here is a 
fact of awful omen. Death reigns in this world of ours — death 
moral, social, political, and physical, has ever trampled upon man, 
proud man, learned man, civilized man, over all the plans of man, 
over every man and over every association of men, even the 
largest, the wisest, the mightiest. And now the infidel, having 
taken away our hope of help from heaven, comes with the serpent's 
hiss and fiendish sneer to taunt the perishing world with this 
miserable truism — that the tendency of every thing on earth is to 
perdition, and that it needs no inspiration to tell it. Truly it does 
not. Were that all the prophets of God had to tell us — as it is all 
the prophets of infidelity can prophecy — we had as little need for 
the one as for the other. Earthquake and hurricane, volcano and 
valley flood, autumn frosts and winter blasts, fever, consumption, 
war, and pestilence, the grave-yard and the charnel-house, the 
136 



PROPHECY. 9 

Parthenon and the Pyramids, and the mounds of Mexico and 
Assyria, unite to attest this awful doom. 

But what reason has the skeptic to believe that this invariable 
law of nature shall ever be repealed, and this inevitable progress 
of all things to perdition be arrested? Why may not men be as 
selfish and filthy, and grasping and murderous in the other world 
as they are in this? Why may not the course of nature be as fatal 
to the sinner's prosperity there, as it is here? Why may not the 
progress of the proud empires and spheres of futurity, be such as 
the skeptic declares the progress of the past to have been, so 
invariably towards dissolution and death, that it shall need no 
inspiration to predict its course downward, downward, ever down- 
ward, to endless perdition ? Stand forward skeptic, and point the 
world to an instance in which an ungodly nation has stemmed this 
all-destroying torrent of ruin; or acknowledge that all you can 
promise the nations of the world to come, from your experience of 
the invariable laws of nature, is perdition, endless perdition. 

II. It is manifest, however, that this destruction of nations and 
desolation of empires must have had a beginning some time or 
other. Nations could not perish before they had grown, nor em- 
pires be destroyed till they had accumulated ; and during all this 
period of their growth and vigor, the experience of mankind would 
never lead them to predict their ruin. The sagacious observer, 
beholding Babylon, Nineveh, Damascus, and Tyre, growing and 
flourishing during a period of a thousand years past, would have 
no reason from such an experience to expect any thing else than a 
thousand years of prosperity to come. Especially impossible is it 
for human sagacity, enlightened by experience, to predict unex- 
ampled desolations — destructions such as the world had never 
witnessed. 

Now the predictions of the Bible are predictions of unexampled 
desolations, and unparalleled ruin of empires. The desolation of 
any extensive region of the earth, or the overthrow of any great 
nation, was an event absolutely unknown to the world when the 
prophets of the Bible began to utter their predictions ; unless the 
skeptic will allow the truth of the Bible record of the prediction 
and execution of the deluge, and the destruction of Sodom. War 
and conquest had indeed caused some provinces to change masters ; 
one nation had made marauding invasions on others, and carried 

137 



10 PROPHECY. 

off cattle and slaves ; but the result of the greatest military opera- 
tion of which we have any record, at the commencement of the 
prophetic era — the conquest of Palestine by the Israelites — so far 
from desolating the region, or exterminating the people, had been 
merely to increase its productiveness, and drive its former occu- 
pants to new settlements, where at that era they were fully able to 
cope with their former conquerors. Whatever the experience of 
thirty centuries may have since taught the nations concerning the 
certainty of the connection between national crime and national 
ruin, a long suffering God had not then given any such signal 
examples of it, as those of which he gave warning by the prophets. 

The course of the nations and cities founded after the deluge had 
been regularly onward and prosperous, and they were just rising 
to the maturity of their power and splendor when Jonah, Micah, 
Hosea, and Isaiah, began to pronounce their sentences. They 
denounced desolation and solitude against nations more populous 
than this continent, one of whose cities enumerated more citizens 
than some of our proud commonwealths, and displayed buildings, 
a sight of whose crumbling ruins is deemed sufficient recompense 
for the perils of a journey of six thousand miles. The hundred 
churches of Cincinnati could all have been conveniently arranged 
in the basement of the temple of Belus ; on the first floor our 
hundred thousand non-church going citizens might have assem- 
bled to listen to a lecture on spiritualism from some eloquent 
Chaldean soothsayer ; and the remaining seven stories would have 
still been open for the accommodation of the natives of the original 
Queen City. Every product of earth was trafficked in the markets 
of Tyre — a single Jewish house imported annually more gold than 
all the banks of this continent possess — and the whole coinage of 
the United States since 1793 would want a hundred millions of 
dollars of the value of the golden furniture of a single temple in 
Babylon. In fact, in the suburbs of Babylon or Nineveh, Wash- 
ington or Cincinnati would have been insignificant villages ; and 
the stone-fronted brick palaces of Broadway and the Fifth Avenue, 
would make passable stables and haylofts for the mansions of 
Thebes or Petra. 

So far, therefore, from being the teaching of experience, the cal- 
culation of sagacity, there was nothing more utterly unexampled 
and unparalleled than the complete desolation of any nation at the 
138 



PROPHECY. 11 

time the prophets of Israel predicted such things. If the world 
has grown wiser since regarding the decline and fall of empires, it 
has gathered the best part of its sagacity from the prophecies. 

III. The prophecies of the Bible are not vague general denun- 
ciations of natural decline and extinction to all the nations of the 
world, which, if they were merely the exposition of a universal 
natural law of national death, they would be — nor yet the appli- 
cation of any such natural and inevitable law to some particular 
nation, denouncing its destruction, without any specification of 
time, manner, instrument, or cause of its infliction. They are all 
the applications of moral law — sentences pronounced on account 
of national wickedness. In every case the prophecy charges the 
crimes, and specifies the punishment selected by the Judge of all 
the earth. The nations selected as examples of Divine justice are 
as various as their sentences are different — covering a space as 
long as from Eastport to San Francisco, and climes as various as 
those between Canada and Cuba; peopled by men of every shade 
of color and degree of capacity, from the negro servant of servants, 
to the builders of the Colosseum and the pyramids. They minutely 
describe, in their own expressive symbols, the nations yet unfounded 
and kings unborn, who should ignorantly execute the judgments 
of the Lord. They predict the futures of over thirty states — no two 
of which are alike, each prediction embracing a large number of 
minute particulars, any one of which was utterly beyond the range 
of human sagacity. To predict that a man will die may require 
no great sagacity, but to tell the year of his death, that he will die 
as a criminal, allege the crime for which he will be sentenced, the 
time, place, and manner of his execution, and the name of the 
sheriff who will execute the sentence, is plainly beyond the skill 
of man. Such is the character of Bible predictions. Zedekiah's 
sentence was thus pronounced ; and thus, too, the sentences of 
nations doomed to ruin for their crimes are recorded in the Bible, 
that men may know that the mouth of the Lord hath spoken them. 
If, for instance, a prophet should declare that New York should be 
overturned, and become a little fishing village, and that her stones 
and timber, and her very dust, should be scraped off and thrown 
into the East River — that Philadelphia should become a swamp, 
and never be inhabited, from generation to generation — that Co- 
lumbus should be deserted, and become a hog-pen — that Louisville 
should become a dry, barren desert, and New Orleans be utterly 

139 



12 PROPHECY. 

consumed with fire, and never be built again — that learning should 
depart from Boston, and no travelers ever pass through it any 
more — that New England should become the basest of the nations, 
and no native American ever be President of the Union, but that 
it should be a spoil and a prey to the most savage tribes, and that 
the .Russians should tread Washington under foot for a thousand 
years, but that God would preserve Pittsburg in the midst of 
destruction — and if all these things should come to pass, would 
any man dare to deny that the prophet spake not the dictates of 
human sagacity, or the calculations of genius, but the words of 
God? 

To attempt to illustrate the Divine wisdom displayed in a system 
of connected predictions, covering the destiny of the nations of the 
world, and extending from the dawn of history to the end of time, 
by presenting two or three instances of the fulfillment of specific 
predictions, would be something like exhibiting a fragment of a 
column as a monument of the skill of the architect of a temple ; 
yet, as such a fragment may excite the curiosity of the traveler to 
visit the structure whence it was taken, I shall present two or three 
prophecies in which specific predictions are given, concerning the 
geographical, political, social, and religious condition of three of the 
great nations of antiquity — Egypt, Judea, and Babylon — the ful- 
filment of which is spread over the surface of empires and the 
ruins of cities, patent to all travelers at the present hour, and 
abundantly attested in hundreds of volumes. An interesting col- 
lection of such testimonies will be found in Keith on the Prophecies; 
while the curious in history will find an invaluable collection of 
extracts from authentic historians, illustrating the specific fulfill- 
ment of prophecy in the past, in Newton on the Prophecies. I do 
earnestly hope hundreds of my young readers will purchase and 
peruse both these volumes. 

Could human sagacity have calculated that Egypt — the most 
defensible country in the world, bounded on the south by inacces- 
sible mountains, on the east by the Red Sea, on the west by the 
trackless, burning desert; able to defend the mouths of her river 
with a powerful navy, and to drown an invading army every year 
by the inundation of the Nile; which had not only maintained her 
independence, but extended her conquests for a thousand years 
past — Egypt, which had given learning, arts, sciences, and idolatry 
to half the world, and which had not risen to the bight of its fame 
140 



PROPHECY. 13 

or the extent of its influence for twenty-five years after the pre- 
diction — should be invaded, conquered, spoiled, become a prey to 
strangers and evermore to strangers, never have a native prince, 
sink into barbarism, renounce idolatry, and become famous for her 
desolations? Yet the Bible predictions are specific on all these 
matters: "I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand 
of the wicked; and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein 
by the hand of strangers. I the Lord have spoken it. Thus saith 
the Lord God, I will also destroy the idols, and I will cause the im- 
ages to cease out of Noph, and there shall be no more a prince of the 
land of Egypt* 

Let infidels read the fulfillment of these predictions : " Such is 
the state of Egypt. Deprived twenty-three centuries ago of her 
natural proprietors, she has seen her fertile fields successively a 
prey to the Persians, the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, 
the Arabs, the Georgians, and at length the race of Tartars distin- 
guished by the name of the Ottoman Turks. The Mamelukes, 
purchased as slaves and introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the 
power and selected a leader. If their first establishment was a 
singular event, their continuance is not less extraordinary; they 
are replaced by slaves brought from their original country.^ Says 
Gibbon : "A more unjust and absurd constitution can not be 
devised than that which condemns the natives of the country to 
perpetual servitude under the arbitrary dominion of strangers and 
slaves. Yet such has been the state of Egypt above five hundred 
years. The most illustrious sultans of the Baharite and Beyite 
dynasties were themselves promoted from the Tartar and Circassian 
bands ; and the four and twenty beys, or military chiefs, have ever 
been succeeded, not by their sons, but by their servants." % Me- 
hemet Ali cut off the Mamelukes, but still Egypt is ruled by the 
Turks, and the present ruler (Ibrahim Pasha) is a foreigner. It is 
needless to remind the reader that the idols are cut off. Neither 
the nominal Christians of Egypt, nor the iconoclastic Moslem, 
allow images to appear among them. The rivers, too, are drying 
up. In one day's travel forty dry water-courses will be crossed in 
the Delta ; and water-skins are needed now around the ruined cities 
whose walls were blockaded by Greek and Roman navies. 



* Ezekiel, chap. xxx. % Decline and Fall, chap. lix. 

f Volney's Travels, 1, 74, 103. 

141 



14 PROPHECY. 

"It shall be the basest of the kingdoms, neither shall it exalt itself 
any more above the nations, for I will diminish them that they shall 
no more bear rule over the nations." * Every traveler will attest the 
truth of this prediction. The wretched peasantry are rejoiced to 
labor for any who will pay them five cents a day, and eager to hide 
the treasure in the ground from the rapacious tax-gatherer. I have 
seen British horses refuse to eat the meal ground from the mixture 
of wheat, barley, oats, lentiles, millet, and a hundred unknown 
seeds of weeds and collections of filth, which forms the produce of 
their fields. For poverty, vermin, and disease, Egypt is proverbial. 
Let us hear a scoffer's testimony, however: "In Egypt there is no 
middle class, neither nobility, clergy, merchants, nor landholders. 
A universal air of misery in all the traveler meets points out to 
him the rapacity of oppression, and the distrust attendant upon 
slavery. The profound ignorance of the inhabitants equally pre- 
vents them from perceiving the causes of their evils, or applying 
the necessary remedies. Ignorance, diffused through every class, 
extends its effects to every species of moral and physical know- 
ledge. Nothing is talked of but intestine troubles, the public 
misery, pecuniary extortions, and bastinadoes." + 

Here, then, we have conclusive proof of the fulfillment at this 
day of four distinct, specific, and improbable Bible predictions: 
concerning the country — the rulers — the religion — and the people 
of Egypt. 

Let us note now a distinct and totally different judgment pro- 
nounced against the transgressors of another land. Pre-eminent 
in inflicting destruction on others, her retribution was to be ex- 
treme. Degradation and slavery were to be the portion of the 
learned Egyptians, but utter extinction is the doom of mighty 
Babylon. It is written in the Bible concerning the land where the 
farmer was accustomed to reap two hundred fold: "Cut off the 
sower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time 
of harvest. Every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against 
Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an in- 
habitant. Behold the hinder-most of the nations shall be a dry land 
and a desert. Because of the wrath of the Lord it shall not be in- 
habited, but it shall be wholly desolate.% 



* Ezekiel, chap. xxix. J Jeremiah, chap. 50 and 5.1. 

t Yolney, 1. 190. 
142 



PROPHECY. 15 

Proofs in abundance of the fulfillment of these predictions pre- 
sent themselves in every volume of travels in Assyria and Chaldea. 
"Those splendid accounts of the Babylonian lands yielding crops 
of grain of two and three hundred fold, compared with the modern 
face of the country, afford a remarkable proof of the singular deso- 
lation to which it has been subjected. The canals at present can 
only be traced by their decayed banks. The soil of this desert 
consists of a hard clay, mixed with mud, which at noon becomes 
so heated with the sun's rays, that I found it too hot to walk over it 
with any degree of comfort. " * " That it was at some former 
period in a far different state is evident from the number of canals 
by which it is traversed, now dry and neglected ; and the quantity 
of heaps of earth, covered with fragments of brick and broken 
tiles, which are seen in every direction — the indisputable traces 
of former cultivation.! "The abundance of the country has 
vanished as clean away as if the besom of desolation had swept it 
from north to south ; the whole land, from the outskirts of Babylon 
to the farthest stretch of sight, lying a melancholy waste. Not a 
habitable spot appears for countless miles. % 

As the desolation of the country was to be extraordinary, so the 
desolation of the city of Babylon was to be remarkable. When the 
prophet wrote, its walls had been raised to the hight of three 
hundred and fifty feet, and made broad enough for six chariots to 
drive upon them abreast. From its hundred brazen gates issued 
the armies which trampled under foot the liberties of mankind, and 
presented their lives to the nod of a despot, who slew whom he 
would, and whom he would allowed to live. Twenty years' pro- 
visions were collected within its walls, and the world would not 
believe that an enemy could enter its gates. Nevertheless the 
prophets of God pronounced against it a doom of destruction as 
extraordinary as the pride and wickedness which procured it. 
Tyre, the London of Asia, was to become a place for the spreading 
of nets, § and the infidel Volney tells us its commerce has declined 
to a trifling fishery ; but even that implies some few resident 
inhabitants. Rabbah, of Ammon, was to become a stable for 
camels and a couching place for flocks. || Lord Lindsay reports 
that " he could not sleep amidst its ruins for the bleating of sheep, 

* Mignon's Travels, 31. g Ezekiel, chap. 26. 

t Trans. Bombay Lit. Soc, i. 123. j] Ezekiel, chap. 25. 

J Porter's Babylonia, ii. 285. 

143 



16 PROPHECY. 

that the dung of camels covers the ruins of its palaces, and that 
the only building left entire in its Acropolis is used as a sheep- 
fold." * Yet sheepfolds imply that the tents of their Arab owners 
are near, and that some human beings would occasionally reside 
near its ruins. But desolation, solitude, and utter abandonment 
to the wild beasts of the desert is the specific and clearly predicted 
doom of the world's proud capital. The most expressive symbols 
are selected from the desert to portray its desertion. 

"Babylon, the glory of the kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees 1 
excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 
It shall never be inhabited, nor dwelt in, from generation to gener- 
ation. Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall 
shepherds make their folds there; but wild beasts of the desert shall 
be there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and 
owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there; and the wild 
beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons 
in their pleasant places." f 

Every traveler attests the fulfillment of this strange prediction. 
"It is a tenantless and desolate metropolis," says Mignon, who, 
though fully armed, and attended by six Arabs, could not induce 
them by any reward to pass the night among its ruins, from 
their apprehension of evil spirits. So completely fulfilled is the 
prophecy, "The Arabian shall not pitch his tent there." The same 
voice which called camels and flocks to the palaces of Rabbah, 
summoned a very different class of tenants for the palaces of 
Babylon. Rabbah was to be a sheepfold, Babylon a menagerie of 
wild beasts — a very specific difference, and very improbable. One 
of the later Persian kings, however, after it was destroyed and 
deserted, repaired its walls, converted it into a vast hunting- 
ground, and stocked it with all manner of wild beasts; and to this 
day the apes of the Spice Islands, and the lions of the African 
deserts meet in its palaces, and howl their testimony to the truth 
of God's word. Sir R. K. Porter saw two majestic lions in the 
Mujelibe, (the ruins of the palace,) and Fraser thus describes the 
chambers of fallen Babylon: "There were dens of wild beasts in 
various places, and Mr. Rich perceived in some a strong smell, like 
that of a lion. Bones of sheep and other animals were seen in the 
cavities, with numbers of bats and owls." 

* Lindsay's Travels, ii. 78, 117. f Isaiah, chap. 13. 

144 



PROPHECY. 17 

Various destructions were predicted for Babylon. "I will make 
it a habitation for the bittern, and pools of water,"* says one pro- 
phecy. " Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilder- 
ness,"t says another. How can such contradictions be true? says 
the scoffer. 

But the scoffer's contradiction is a fact. God can cause the most 
discordant agencies to agree in effecting his purpose. Babylon is 
alternately an overflowed swamp from the inundations of the 
obstructed Euphrates, and an arid desert under the scorching rays 
of an eastern sun. Says Mignon : "Morasses and ponds tracked 
the ground in various places. For a long time after the subsiding 
of the Euphrates great part of this place is little better than a 
swamp." At another season it was "a dry waste and burning 
plain." Even at the same period, "one part on the western side 
is low and marshy, and another an arid desert." $ 

Another, and widely different agent, to be employed in the 
destruction of the great center of tyranny and idolatry, is thus 
specifically and definitely indicated in the prediction : "Behold I 
am against thee, destroying mountain, that destroyest all the 
earth ; and I will stretch out my hand against thee, and roll thee 
down from the rocks, and make of thee a burnt mountain ; and they 
shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, or a stone for founda- 
tions, but thou shall be desolate for ever, saith the Lord." || 

"There is one fact," says Fraser, "in connection with the most 
remarkable of these relics, (the Birs Nimrod,) which we can not 
dismiss without a few more observations. All travelers w"no have 
ascended the Birs have taken notice of the singular heaps of brick- 
work scattered on the summit of this mound, at the foot of the 
remnant of the wall still standing. To the writer they appeared 
the most striking of all the ruins. That they have undergone the 
most violent action of fire is evident from the complete vitrification 
which has taken place in many of the masses. Yet how a heat 
sufficient to produce such an effect could have been applied at such 
a hight from the ground is unaccountable. They now lie on a 
spot elevated two hundred feet above the plain, and must have 
fallen from some much more lofty position, for the structure which 
still remains, and of which they may be supposed originally to have 
formed a part, bears no marks of fire. The building originally 

* Isaiah, chap. 14. % Jeremiah, chaps. 50 and 51. || Jeremiah, chap. 5L 

f Jeremiah, chap. 51. \ Mignon, 139. 

10 145 



18 PROPHECY. 

can not have contained any great proportion of combustible ma- 
terials, and to produce so intense a heat by substances carried to 
such an elevation, would have been almost impossible, for want of 
space to pile them on. Nothing, we should be inclined to say, 
short of the most powerful action of electric fire, could have pro- 
duced the complete, yet circumscribed fusion which is here 
observed. Although fused into a solid mass, the courses of bricks 
are still visible, identifying them with the standing pile above, but 
so hardened by the power of heat, that it is almost impossible to 
break off the smallest piece; and, though porous in texture, and 
full of air-holes and cavities, like other bricks, they require, on 
being submitted to the stone-cutter's lathe, the same machinery as 
is used to dress the hardest pebbles." * 

Egypt was to be reduced to slavery and degradation, Babylonia 
to utter barrenness and desolation; but a different and still more 
incredible doom is pronounced in the Bible upon Judea and its 
people. The land was to be emptied of its people, and remain 
uncultivated, retaining all its former fertility, while the people 
were to be scattered over all the earth, yet never to lose their dis- 
tinct nationality, nor be amalgamated with their neighbors : "I will 
make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries into desolation; 
and I will bring the land unto desolation, and your enemies which 
dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among 
the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you, and your land shall 
be desolate and your cities waste. Tlien shall the land enjoy her Sab- 
baths as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies' land, even 
then shall the land rest, and enjoy her Sabbaths, f Until the cities 
be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the 
land be utterly desolate, and the Lord have removed men far away, 
and there be a great forsaking in the midst of the land. But yet 
in it shall be a tenth, and it shall return and shall be eaten, as a teil 
tree and as an oak, whose substance is in them when they cast their 
leaves. % The generation to come of your children, and the 
stranger FROM a far land, shall say, ■ Wherefore hath the Lord 
done thus to this land t What meaneth the heat of this great 



anger 



?> » 



It is superfluous to adduce proof of the undeniable and acknowl- 
edged fulfillment of these predictions, but as an example of the 

* Fraser's Mesopotamia and Assyria, 145. % Isaiah, chap. 6. 

f Leviticus, chap. 26. g Deuteronomy, chap. 29. 

146 



PROPHECY. 19 

way in which God causes scoffers to fulfil the prophecies, let us 
again hear Volney : "I journeyed in the empire of the Ottomans, 
and traversed the provinces which were formerly the kingdoms 
of Egypt and Syria. I enumerated the kingdoms of Damascus 
and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria. This Syria, said I to 
myself, now almost depopulated, then contained a hundred flourish- 
ing cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and hamlets. What 
has "become of so many productions of the hand of man? "What 
has become of those ages of abundance and of life? Great God! 
from whence proceed such melancholy revolutions ? For what cause 
is the fortune of these countries so strikingly changed? Why are 
so many cities destroyed? Why is not that ancient population 
reproduced and perpetuated? A mysterious God exercises his 
incomprehensible judgments. He has doubtless pronounced a 
secret malediction against the earth. He has struck with a curse 
the present race of men in revenge of past generations." * The 
malediction is no secret to any who will read the twenty-ninth 
chapter of Deuteronomy; nor is the avenging of the quarrel of 
God's covenant confined to the sins of past generations. The 
philosopher who would understand the fates of cities and empires, 
should read the prophecies. 

The word of God specifies no less distinctly and definitely the 
destiny of the Jewish than of the Babylonian capital, but fixes on 
a widely different kind of destruction. Babylon was never to be 
built again, but devoted to solitude — busy Tyre to become a place 
for spreading nets — the caravans, which once brought the wealth 
of India through Petra were to cease, and the doom was to " cut 
off him that passeth by and him that returneth." But Jerusalem, 
it was predicted, should long feel the miseries of a multitude of 
oppressors, should never enjoy the luxury of solitary woe, but "be 
trodden down of the Gentiles, f Saracens, Tartars, Turks, and 
Crusaders, Gentiles from every nation of the earth, fulfilled the 
prediction of old, even as hosts of pilgrims from all parts of the 
earth do at this day. 

So minute and specific are the predictions of Scripture, that the 
fate of particular buildings is accurately defined. One temple to 
the living God, and only one, raised its walls in this world, which 
he had made for his worship. - Its frequenters perverted it from its 

* Volney's Buins of Empires, Book I. f Luke, chap. 21. 

147 



20 PROPHECY. 

proper use of leading them to confess their sinfulness, seek pardon 
through the promised Savior to whom its ceremonies pointed, and 
learn to be holy, as the God of that temple was holy. They hoped 
that the holiness of the place would screen them in the indulgence 
of pride, formality, and wickedness. The temple of the Lord, 
instead of the Lord of the temple, was the object of their vener- 
ation. But the doom went forth, "Therefore for your salces shall 
Zion be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become as heaps, 
and the mountain of the house like the high places of the forest." * 
History has preserved, and the Jews to this day curse, the name of 
the soldier, Terentius Rufus, who plowed up the foundations of the 
temple. It long continued in this state. But the emperor Julian 
the Apostate conceived the idea of falsifying the prediction of 
Jesus, "Behold your house is left unto you desolate," f and sent his 
friend Alypius with a Roman army and abundant treasure, to 
rebuild it. The Jews flocked from all parts to assist in the work. 
Spades or pickaxes of silver were provided by the vanity of the 
rich, and the rubbish was transported in mantles of silk and 
purple. But they were obliged to desist from the attempt, for 
" horrible balls of fire breaking out from the foundations with 
repeated attacks, rendered the place inaccessible to the scorched 
workmen, and the element driving them to a distance from time to 
time, the enterprise was dropped." | Such is the testimony of a 
heathen, confirmed by Jews and Christians. The enclosures of the 
mosque of Omar forbidding them all access to the spot on which it 
stood, leave it desolate to the Jews to this day. 

IV. No sane man can believe that such minute and accurate 
predictions of various and improbable events, could be the result 
of human calculations ; yet there is another feature of the Bible 
prophecies still farther removed beyond the reach of human 
sagacity, and that is remarkable and unaccountable preservation 
amidst the general ruin. If, as skeptics allege, destruction is the 
natural and inevitable doom, then preservation is supernatural and 
miraculous — a miracle of Divine power controlling nature ; and 
its prediction is a miracle of Divine wisdom. Now the prophecies 
of the Bible contain several very definite, and widely different pre- 
dictions of the preservation of people and cities from the general 
destruction. We shall refer in this case also to those of whose ful- 

* Micah, chap. 3. J Ammian Marcell. lib. 23, chap. 1 

f Matthew, chap. 23. 
148 



PROPHECY. 21 

fillment there can be no manner of doubt, for the facts are palpable 
and undeniable at the present day. 

Of the Israelitish nation God predicted, that it should be a 
peculiar, distinct people, separate from the other nations of the 
world : "Lo the people shall dwell alone, and shall not be reckoned 
among the nations." * In apparent contradiction to this separation, 
he further threatened to punish them for their sins, by dispersing 
them over the world : "J will scatter you among the heathen, and 
will draw out a sword after you. f For lo, I will command, and I 
will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted 
in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth." % It 
was further threatened, as if to make sure of their national 
destruction, "And among these nations thou shalt find no ease, 
neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord shall give 
thee a trembling heart and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind ; 
and thy life shall hang in^doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear 
day and night, and have none assurance of thy life. || Contrary 
to all appearances, and in spite of all this dispersion and persecu- 
tion, it is predicted that Israel shall still exist as a nation, and be 
restored to the favor of God, and that prosperity which ever 
accompanies it: "And yet, for all that, when they be in the land 
of their enemies, I will not cast them away, neither will I abhor 
them to destroy them utterly, and to break my covenant with them; 
for I am the Lord their God." § 

Here are four distinct predictions — of national peculiarity — 
universal dispersion — grievous oppression — and remarkable pre- 
servation. The fulfillment is obvious and undeniable. You need 
no commentary to explain it. Go into any clothing-store on 
Western Row, or into the synagogue in Broadway, and you will 
see it. The infidel is sorely perplexed to give any account of this 
great phenomenon. How does it happen that this singular people 
is dispersed over all the earth, and yet distinct and unamalgamated 
with any other? How does it happen that for eighteen hundred 
years they have resisted all the influences of nature, and all the 
customs of society, and all the powers of persecution, driving them 
towards amalgamation, and irresistible in all other instances? In 
the face of the power of the Chinese Empire, in spite of the 



* Numbers, chap. 23. % Amos, chap. 9. || Leviticus, chap. 26. 

f Leviticus, chap. 26. g Deuteronomy, chap. 32. 

149 



22 PROPHECY. 

tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, amidst the chaos of African 
nationalities and the fusion of American democracy, in the plains 
of Australia, and in the streets of San Francisco, the religion, 
customs, and physiognomy of the children of Israel are as distinct 
this day as they were three thousand years ago, when Moses 
wrote them in the Pentateuch, and Shishak painted them on the 
tombs of Medinct Abou. How does the infidel account for it? 
It will not do to allege the favorite story about purity of blood and 
Caucasian race ; for the question is, How does it happen that this 
people, and this people alone, have kept the blood pure ; while all 
other races are so mingled that no other race can be found pure 
on earth? Besides, lest any should suppose such a cause suffi- 
cient for their preservation, another nation descended from the 
same father and the same mother — the children of Jacob's twin 
brother, have utterly perished, and there is not any remaining 
of the house of Esau. 

Human sagacity, with all the facts before its face, can not give 
any rational account of the causes of this anomaly. It can not 
tell to-day, why this people exists separate from, and scattered 
through all nations, from Kamschatka to New Zealand ; how, then, 
could it foretell, three thousand years ago, this singular exception 
to all the laws of national existence ? While the sun and moon 
endure, the nation of Israel shall exist as God's witness to God's 
word — an undeniable proof that the mouth of the Lord hath 
spoken it. 

Take another instance of preservation, so remarkable amidst 
the surrounding destruction, that it arrested the attention and 
admiration of the author of the Decline and Fall of the Roman 
Empire, skeptic and scoffer though he was. 

The seven churches of seven of the most considerable cities 
of Asia, were then, as the churches of Christ still are, the salt 
of the earth. Ten righteous men would have averted God's judg- 
ments from Sodom. Jesus pronounced the sentences of these 
churches seventeen hundred and sixty years ago, and the present 
condition of the cities attests the Divine authority of the record 
containing them. They are various and specific. Three were to 
be utterly destroyed. Against two no special threatening is 
denounced. To the remaining two promises of life and blessing 
are given. 

Ephesus, famous for its magnificence, the busy avenue of travel, 
150 



PROPHECY. 23 

the seat of the temple of Diana, long the residence of an apostle, 
and afterward of Christian bishops — " one of the eyes of Asia," — 
as it stood first on the roll of cities, first receives the doom of 
abused privileges: " I will remove thy candlestick out of its place, 
unless thou repent." 

Says Gibbon : * ** The captivity and ruin of the seven churches 
of Asia was consummated (by the Ottomans) A. D. 1312; and the 
barbarous lords of Ionia and Lydia still trample on the monuments 
of classic and Christian antiquity. In the loss of Ephesus, the 
Christians deplored the fall of the first angel, and the extinction 
of the first candlestick of the Revelation. The desolation is com- 
plete, and the temple of Diana or the Church of Mary will equally 
elude the search of the curious traveler." 

"A few unintelligible heaps of stones," says Arundell. "with 
some mud cottages untenanted, are all the remains of the great 
city of the Ephesians. Even the sea has retired from the scene 
of desolation, and a pestilential morass, covered with mud and 
rushes, has succeeded to the waters which brought up the ships 
laden with merchandise from every country." Some parts of the 
site of the city are cultivated ; and Fisk, who entered into conver- 
sation with the Greek peasants, men and women whom he found 
pulling up the tares and weeds from the corn, ascertained that 
they all belonged to distant villages, and came there to labor. 

Had the twenty thousand patrons of the drama in the thirty-one 
theatres of New York, honored the theatre of Laodicea with their 
presence, its polite citizens would have accommodated them all on 
the reserved seats, retiring themselves to ten thousand less com- 
modious sittings, and to two less gigantic theatres. While yet 
busy in the erection of their splendid places of public amusement, 
Jesus said, "I will spew thee out of my mouth." " The circus and 
three stately theatres of Laodicea are peopled with wolves and 
foxes," says Gibbon. 

A Lydian capitalist once deposited in the vaults of Sardis more 
specie than is now in circulation in this whole continent. But 
Jesus said, "Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead. 
If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come upon thee as a thief, 
and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee." 

" Sardis," says Gibbon, " is a miserable village." A later writer 

* Chapter 64. 

151 



24 PROPHECY. 

(Durbin) tells us that the Turks say, " Every one who builds a 
house in Sardis dies soon, and avoid the spot." Arundell, in his 
account of his visit to the seven churches, says : "If I were asked 
what impresses the mind most strongly on beholding Sardis, I 
should say " its indescribable solitude, like the darkness of Egypt, 
that could be felt. So deep the solitude of the spot, once the lady 
of kingdoms, produces a feeling of desolate abandonment in the 
mind which can never be forgotten." Connect this feeling with 
the message of the Apocalypse to the church of Sardis, " Thou 
hast a name that thou livest and art dead, and then look around 
and ask, Where are the churches ? "Where are the Christiana 
of Sardis? The tumuli beyond the Hermus reply, "All dead!" — 
suffering the infliction of the threatened judgment of God for the 
abuse of their privileges. Let the unbeliever, then, be asked, Is 
there no truth in prophecy? — no reality in religion?-" 

Only twenty-seven miles north of this desolate metropolis, the 
manufactories of Thyatira despatch weekly to Smyrna, cloths, as 
famous over Asia for the brilliancy and durability of their hues as 
those which Lydia displayed to the admiration of the ladies of 
Phillippi. Two thousand two hundred Greek Christians, two 
hundred Armenian, and a Protestant Church under the care of the 
missionaries of the American Board of Commissioners of Foreign 
Missions, assemble every Sabbath to commemorate the resurrection 
of Him who said to the Church of Thyatira: " I will put upon you 
no other burden ; but that which ye have already hold fast till 1 
come" 

The fragrant citron still flourishes around the birth-place of 
Galen; but the ruins of the famous library of 200,000 manuscripts 
are far less durable memorials of the city of booksellers than those 
beautifully dressed skins, which, taking their name (Pergamena) 
from the place of their manufacture, will preserve the name and 
fame of Pergamos as long as parchment can preserve man's 
memorials or God's predictions. Though famous for fragrance, 
physic, and philosophy, Pergamos was infamous for idolatry, licen- 
tiousness, and persecution; yet still endeared to Jesus as the scene 
of the martyrdom of faithful Antipas, and the dwelling-place of a 
hidden church; and widely different sentences are recorded against 
those opposite classes. The public memorials are to perish, but 
the hidden word to endure. " The fanes of Jupiter and Diana, 
and Venus and Esculapius, (worshipped under the symbol of a livo 
152 



PROPHECY. 25 

snake,) were prostrate in the dust, and where they had not been 
carried away by the Turks to cut up into tombstones or pound 
into mortar, the Corinthian columns and the Ionic, the splendid 
capitals, the cornices and the pediments, all in the highest orna- 
ment, were thrown in unsightly heaps ;"'* is the comment on the 
threatening of Jesus, "I will fight against them — the idolaters — 
with the sicord of my mouth." The 3,000 Greek and 300 Armenian 
Christians, and even the 10,000 Turkish inhabitants of the modern 
Pergamos, have received hundreds of copies of the promise, "To 
him that overcometh I will give to eat of the hidden manna, and 
will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, 
which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it." But whether 
the hidden church of Pergamos shine forth or not, Gibbon was 
inaccurate in stating, in the face of facts, that " the god of Mo- 
hammed without a rival is invoked in the mosques of Pergamos 
and Thyatira." God's providence is as discriminating as his 
prophecy, though unbelief may overlook both. 

We have noted here instances of the prediction of remarkable 
destruction to Sardis, Ephesus, and Laodicea — of continued exist- 
ence to Pergamos and Thyatira — let us now note a prediction of 
remarkable escape and preservation from the universal doom. If 
it requires no inspiration to prophecy destruction — the universal 
fate of humanity, according to the infidel — surely it requires more 
than human skill to say that any city shall escape this universal 
fate, and more than human power to avert this destruction. Of. 
Philadelphia — but twenty-five miles distant from the ruins of 
Sardis — Jesus said, and the Bible records the prophecy: "I know 
thy works; behold I have set before thee an open door, and no man 
can shut it, for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, 
and hast not denied my name. Behold I will make them of the 
synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews and are not, but do 
lie; behold I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, 
and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word 
of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation 
which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the 
earth. Behold I come quickly, hold that fast thou hast, that no man 
take thy crown. Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the 
temple of my God, and he shall go no more out ; and I will write 

* Macfarlane's Seven Apocalyptic Churches. 

153 



26 PROPHECY. 

upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, 
which is, New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my 
God; and I will write upon him my new name." 

"Philadelphia alone/' says Gibbon, "has been saved by prophecy, 
or courage. At a distance from the sea, forgotten by the emperors, 
encompassed on all sides by the Turks, her valiant sons defended 
their religion and their freedom alone for fourscore years, and at 
length capitulated with the proudest of the Ottomans. AmoDg 
the Greek colonies and churches of Asia, . Philadelphia is still 
erect — a column in a scene of ruins — a pleasing example that the 
paths of honor and safety may be the same." 

In the pages of this eloquent writer it would be hard to discover 
another instance of unqualified hearty commendation of soldiers 
or sufferers for Christianity and liberty, such as Gibbon here 
bestows on Philadelphia's valiant sons. But it was written, "I will 
make them come and worship before thy feet," and the skeptic and 
scoffer must fulfill the word of Jesus; even as the unbelieving Mo- 
hammedan also does, when he writes upon it the modern name, 
Allah Sehr — The City of God. A majestic solitary pillar, of high 
antiquity, arrests the eye of the traveler, and reminds the wor- 
shippers of the six modern churches of Philadelphia, of the beauty 
and faithfulness of the prophetic symbol. Heaven and earth shall 
pass away, but Jesus' word shall not pass away. 

Improbable to human sagacity as this preservation must have 
seemed, the resurrection of a fallen city is more utterly beyond 
man's vision. In the Bible, however, tribulation and recovery was 
foretold to Smyrna : "Fear none of those things which thou shalt 
suffer. Behold the devil shall cast some of you into prison, and ye 
shall have tribulation ten days. Be thou faithful unto death, and 
I will give thee a crown of life." " The populousness of Smyrna is 
owing to the foreign trade of the Franks and Armenians," says 
the scoffer. No matter to what it is owing; he who dictated the 
Bible foresaw it, and made no mistake in foretelling it. Says 
Arundell: "This, the other eye of Asia, is still a very flourishing 
commercial city, one of the very first in the present Turkish 
empire in wealth and population, containing 130,000 inhabitants. 
The continued importance of Smyrna may be estimated from the 
fact that it is the seat of a consul from every nation in Europe. 
The prosperity of Smyrna is now rather on the increase than the 
decline, and the houses of painted wood, which were most unwor- 
154 



PROPHECY. 27 

thy of its ancient fame and present importance, are rapidly giving 
way to palaces of stone rising in all directions; and probably, ere 
many years have passed, the modern town may not unworthily 
represent the ancient city, which the ancients delighted to call the 
crown of Ionia. Commercial activity and architectural beauty, 
however, are but a small part of the glorious destiny of the com- 
munity to which Jesus says, "I will give thee a crown of life." 
Deliverance from the curse of sin, and communion with the Lord of 
Life, alone can secure either a nation's or an individual's immor- 
tality. Smyrna possesses the gospel of salvation. Several devoted 
English and American missionaries proclaim salvation to its citi- 
zens. From its printing presses thousands of copies of the word 
of life issue to all the various populations of the Turkish empire. 
A living church of Christ in Smyrna holds forth for the acceptance 
of the dying nations around her, that crown of life promised and 
granted by the word of God, not to her only, but to all who love 
his appearing and his kingdom. 

V. This is the grand distinction of God's word of prophecy, that 
it is the word of life. It is the only word which promises life, the 
only word which bestows it on fallen humanity. Recognizing no 
inevitable law of destruction but the sentence of God, no invariable 
law of nature superior to the counsel of Jehovah, nor any progress 
of events which his Almighty arm can not arrest and reverse, it 
points a despairing world to sin as the cause of all destruction, to 
Satan as the author of sin, to ungodly men in league with him as 
the foes of God and man, and to Christ pledged to perpetual war- 
fare with such until the last enemy be destroyed. This word of 
prophecy tells us, that the battle-fields Messiah has won are earnests 
of that great victory ; points to the columns which he has pre- 
served erect amidst scenes of ruin, as assurances that he is able to 
save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him ; goes to the 
grave-yards, where fallen Smyrnas, idolatrous Saxons, debased 
Sandwich Islanders, and cannibal New Zealanders have buried the 
image of the living God, and in Jesus' name proclaims, "I am the 
resurrection and the life : he that believeth in me, though he were 
dead, yet shall he live ;" and, amidst the very ruins of destroyed 
cities, and the crumbling heaps of their perished memorials, be- 
holds the assurances that Satan's rule of ruin shall not be per- 
petual, anticipates the day when the course of sin and misery shall 
be reversed, and teaches Adam's sons to face the foe, and chant 

155 



28 PROPHECY. 

forth that heaven-born note of victorious faith, "0 thou enemy! 
destructions are come to a perpetual end." 

Come forth, trembling skeptic, from the cave of thy dark invari- 
able experience of death and destruction, and from the vain sparks 
of thy misgiving hopes of an ungodly eternity to come less miser- 
able than the past, and lift thine eyes to this heavenly sunrising 
on the dark mountain tops of futurity, the like of which thou 
didst never dream of in all thy Pantheistic reveries. Search over 
all the religions of the world — the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the 
arrow-headed inscriptions of Assyria, the classic mythologies of 
graceful Greece and iron Rome, the monstrous shasters of thine 
Indian Pundits, or the more chaotic clouds of thy German philoso- 
phies — in none of them wilt thou ever find this divine thought, 
an end of destructions — a perpetual end. Cycles of ruin and reno- 
vation, and of renovation and ruin, vast cycles, if you will, but 
evermore ending in dire catastrophes to gods and men — an ever- 
lasting succession of death and destructions, is the fearful vista 
which all the religions of man, and thine own irreligion, present to 
thy terrified vision. But thou wast created in the image of the 
living God, and durst not rest satisfied with any such prospect. 
Now I come in the name of the Lord to tell thee that, "God so 
loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth on Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" — 
and I demand of thee that thou acknowledge this promise of life 
everlasting to be the word of that living God, and to show cause, 
if any thou hast, why thou dost relinquish thy birthright, and 
spurn the gift of everlasting life which is in Christ Jesus our Lord? 

But, if thou hast no sufficient cause why thou shouldest choose 
death rather than life, then hear, and your soul shall live, while I 
relate the promises which God hath made of old to our fathers, and 
hath fulfilled to us their children, by raising up his Son Jesus 
Christ from the dead, and sending him to bless you, by turning 
away every one of you from your iniquities. For there can be no 
deliverance from misery and destruction but by means of delivery 
from sin and Satan. 

It is quite in agreement with the manner of our deliverance from 
any of the evils of our fallen condition, that our deliverance from 
the power of sin and Satan be effected by the agency of a deliverer. 
Our ignorance is removed by the knowledge of a teacher — our sick- 
ness by the skill of a physician — the oppressed nation hails the 
156 



I 



PROPHECY. 29 

advent of a patriotic leader, and oppressed humanity acknowledges 
the fitness and need of a Divine deliverer, even by the ready wel- 
come it has given to pretenders to this character, and by the 
longing desire of the wisest and best of men for a divinely-com- 
missioned Savior — a desire implanted by the great prophecy, which 
stands at the portal of hope for mankind, in the very earliest 
period of our history, that "the seed of the woman should bruise 
the serpent's head," and so leave man triumphant over the great 
destroyer. 

The prophecies regarding the Messiah are so numerous, pointed, 
various, and improbable, as to set human sagacity utterly at 
defiance ; while they are also connected so as to form a scheme 
of prophecy, which gradually unrolls before us the advent, the 
ministry, the death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord, the 
progress of his gospel over all the world, and the blessed effects it 
should produce on individuals, families, and nations. It closes 
with a view of the second coming of Jesus to conquer the last of 
his enemies, and take possession of the earth as his inheritance. 
I can only lop off a twig or two from this blessed tree of life, in 
the hope that the fragrance of the leaves may allure you to take 
up the Bible, and eat abundantly of its life-giving promises. As I 
have in the three previous Tracts abundantly proved the veracity 
of the New Testament history, I shall now with all confidence refer 
to its account of the birth, life, and death of Jesus, as illustrating 
the prophecies. 

The time, the place, the manner of his birth, his parentage and 
reception, were plainly declared, hundreds of years before he 
appeared. 

When Herod had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of 
the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be 
born, and they said unto him, "in Bethlehem of Judea, for thus 
it is written by the prophet: '■And thou Bethlehem, in the land of 
Judah, art not the least among the princes of Judah, for out of 
thee shall come a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel." The 
first verse of this chapter records the fact, "Now when Jesus was 
born in Bethlehem of Judea."* 

The throne of Judah was to be occupied by strangers, and the 
line of native princes was to cease upon the coming of this Gover- 

* Matthew, chap. 2. 

157 



30 PROPHECY. 

nor, and not till his coming: "The scepter shall not depart from 
Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, till Shiloh come, and 
to him shall the gathering of the people be." On the day of his 
crucifixion the rulers of the Jews made this formal and public 
announcement of the fact, "We have no king but Caesar." * 

He was to address a class of people whom no other religious 
teacher had condescended to notice before, and very few save those 
sent by him ever since: "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, 
because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings to the 
meek, to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the cap* 
iives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." Hear 
Jesus' words: "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest. Go and tell John those things ye 
do hear and see. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the 
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the 
poor have the gospel preached unto them. And blessed is he who- 
soever shall not be offended in me." f 

Yet, notwithstanding his feeding of thousands, and healing of 
multitudes, and teaching of the lowest of the people, it was fore- 
told he should be unpopular: "He is despised and rejected of men, 
a man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs, and we hid, as it 
were, our faces from him. He is despised, and we esteemed him 
not." The brief records are: "Then all his disciples forsook him 
and fled." "Then began Peter to curse and to swear, saying, 'I 
know not the man/ Pilate saith unto them, 'Ye have a custom 
that I release unto you one at the passover: will ye, therefore, that 
I release unto you the King of the Jews V Then they all cried 
again, saying, ' Not this man, but Barabbas.' Now Barabbas was 
a robber." % 

All the prophets agree in predicting that for the sins of his 
people, and to atone for their guilt, he should be put to death by a 
shameful public execution : "In the midst of the week Messiah shall 
be cut off, but not for himself. He was wounded for our transgres- 
sions, he was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peact 
was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. He was numbered 
with the transgressors, and he bore the sin of many, and he made 
intercession for the transgressors. They pierced my hands and my 



* Gen., 49 : 10. John, 19 : 15. f Isaiah, 61. Matthew, 11 : 2. 

X Isaiah, 53 : 3. Matthew, 26 : 56, 74 ; 27 : 15. John, 18 : 40. 

158 



PROPHECY. 31 

feet" * The record says : " The Son of Man came not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for 
many." "And when they were come to the place which is called 
Calvary, there they crucified him and the malefactors, one on the 
right hand and the other on the left. Then said Jesus, 'Father, 
forgive them, for they know not what they do.' " 

The one grand unparalleled fact, one which demands the hope 
of dying men for a victory over the great destroyer, and a resur- 
rection from the tomb — the fact that one man born of a woman 
died, and did not see corruption, but rose again from the dead and 
went up into heaven, and dieth no more — forms the theme of many 
a prophetic psalm of triumph : "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, 
nor wilt thou give thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show 
me the path of life. Thou wilt make me full of joy with thy coun- 
tenance. Thou hast ascended on high. Thou hast led captivity cap- 
tive." Often did Jesus predict this prodigy before friend and foe : 
"Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, when he was yet alive, 
1 After three days I will rise again." The last chapters of the 
gospels relate the proofs by which he convinced his incredulous 
disciples that the prophecy was fulfilled: "Behold my hands and 
my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit hath 
not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus 
spoken, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they 
yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he saith unto them, 'Have 
ye here any meat?' And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, 
and of an honey comb. And he took it and did eat before them ; 
and said unto them, ' Thus it is written, and thus it behooved 
Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day ; and that 
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name 
among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And ye are witnesses 
of these things. And behold I send the promise of my Father 
upon you, but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued 
with power from on high. And he led them out as far as to Beth- 
any, and he lifted up his hands and blessed them. And while he 
was blessing them he was parted from them, and carried up into 
heaven. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as he 
went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel, which 
said, ' Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven ? 

♦Daniel, 9: 26. Isaiah, 53 : 5, 12. Psalm 22: 16. Matthew, 20 : 28. Luke, 23:33. 

159 



32 PROPHECY. 

This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so 
come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven/ " * 

With your own eyes you shall see the fulfillment of this pro- 
phecy. Every eye shall see him. The clouds of heaven shall then 
reveal the vision now sketched on the page of revelation : "And I 
saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from whose face 
the earth and the heaven fled away, and there was found no place 
for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before 
God; and the books were opened ; and another book was opened, 
which is the book of life; and the dead were judged out of those 
things which were written in the books, according to their works. 
And the sea gave up the dead which were in it ; and death and 
hell delivered up the dead which were in them ; and they were 
judged every man according to their works. And death and hell 
were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And 
whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into 
the lake of fire. And I saw a new heaven and a new earth : for 
the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there 
was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, 
coming down from God, out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned 
for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, 
' Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with 
them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with 
them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from 
their eyes ; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor 
crying : neither shall there be any more pain ; for the former 
things are passed away/ And he that sat upon the throne said, 
'Behold, I make all things new.' And he said unto me, 'Write, 

FOR THESE WORDS ARE TRUE AND FAITHFUL/ 
* Psalm 16 : 10 ; 68 : 18. Matthew, 28 : 63. John, 20 : 24. Luke, 20 : 36. Acts, 1 : 9. 



No. 30. 



In the foregoing tracts of this series we have found that we 
have great need of God's teaching; that he has sent his son, Jesus 
Christ, to show us the way of life : that the gospel preached by 
Him and His Apostles has proved itself the power of God by saving 
men from their sins ; and that this gospel is truly recorded in the 
New Testament. From these facts, already settled, we proceed, 
according to our plan of investigation, to examine those which may 
be more obscure — to examine the Old Testament by the light of 
the New. 

The great majority of Jews and Christians have always believed, 
that the world was in as great need of God's teaching before the 
coming of Christ as it has been since — that God did put his words 
into the mouths of certain persons, called prophets ; and that he 
caused them to tell them truly to their neighbors — that he enabled 
these prophets to make predictions of future events beyond the 
skill of man to calculate, and to do miracles which the power 
of man could not perform, as proofs that they spake the word 
of God — that he caused them truly to record in writing a great 
many of these revelations, and so much of the history of the 
times in which, and of the people to whom, they were given, as 
was needful for a right understanding of them — that he has so 
managed matters since, as that these revelations and narratives 
have been faithfully preserved in the books of the Old Testa- 
ment — that we are bound to believe these revelations to be true, not 
because we can otherwise demonstrate their truth, but because 
God, who can not lie, has declared it; and that we are bound to do 
the things they command, not merely because we see them to be 
right, but because God commands us. 

It is needful to consider the Divine Authority of the Old Testa- 
ment distinctly from that of the New, not only because it is a dis- 
tinct subject in itself, — and because our plan of investigation leads 
us backward from the known and established fact of the Divine Au- 
thority of the New Testament to the discovery or disproof of the like 
character in the Old, — but because a great many persons admit, in 
words at least, that Christ was a teacher sent from God, who, either 
in so many words or in effect, deny the Divine Authority of the Old 
Testament. Some of the modern Spiritualists have revived the creed 
11 « 161 



2 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

of the Gnostics of the first century — that the Hebrew Jehovah "was 
a being of very different character from the Deity revealed by Jesus 
Christ. They will extol to the skies the world-wide benevolence, 
compassion and kindness, of the gospel of Christ, in contrast 
with the alleged national pride, bigotry, and exclusiveness of the 
Hebrew prophets. Others are desirous of appearing remarkably 
candid in bestowing on the Old Testament a liberal commendation 
as a collection of religious tracts of merely human origin, and of 
various degrees of merit — some of them of extraordinary literary 
excellence, well suited to the infancy of the human intellect, and 
highly useful in their time in raising men from fetichism and idol- 
atry to the worship of one God ; but which, containing many errors 
along with this grand truth, have been set aside by the more per- 
fect teachings of Christ and his Apostles, much in the same way as 
the old Ptolemaic Astronomy was displaced by the discoveries of 
Newton. Others still are willing to acknowledge the Old Testa- 
ment as inspired, provided we will allow Shakspeare and the Koran 
to be inspired also. Besides all these there are several scores of 
scholars anxious to conceal its nakedness under theories of inspira- 
tion made and trimmed in a great many styles, but all cut from 
the same doctrine, to wit: that God revealed his truth aright to 
Moses and the Prophets, but they went wrong in the telling of it. 
Now, all these notions will be refuted by the fact, that God is the 
Author of the Bible. 

When we say that God is the Author of the Bible, and that it 
carries with it a Divine Authority because it is the Word of God, 
we do not mean that God is the Author of every saying in it, and 
that every sentiment recorded in it is God's mind, any more than 
we mean to make D'Aubigne responsible for every sentiment of 
priests, popes, and monks he has faithfully recorded in his History 
of the Reformation. On the contrary, we find, in the very begin- 
ning of the Bible, a very full expression of the Devil's sentiments 
recorded in the Devil's own words — Ye shall not surely die: and 
they are not one whit less devilish and lying, though recorded in the 
Bible, than when expounded by any modern Universalist preacher. 
But we mean that it is very true that the Devil was the preacher 
of that first Universalist sermon ; and that God thought it needful 
to let mankind know the shape of the doctrine, the character of the 
preacher, and the consequences of listening to error ; and therefore 
directed Moses to record it truly for the information of all whom 
162 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 3 

it may concern. So there are many other sayings of wicked men, 
and even of good men, recorded in the Bible, which are very false ; 
but the Bible gives a true record of them, by God's direction, that 
we may not be ignorant of Satan's devices. 

Nor, when we say that God directed the Prophets what to 
write and how to write it, so that they did not go wrong in the 
writing of his word, do we mean that he also so guided every piece 
of their behavior, as that they never went wrong in doing their 
own actions. Nor that the sins of the saints, recorded in the 
Bible, are any thing the less sinful for being recorded there, or for 
being performed by men who ought to have known better. There 
is not a perfect man upon the earth, that doeth good, and sinneth. 
not. If the Bible had left the faults of its writers undiscovered, it 
would not have been a true history. But these very writers of 
the Bible tell us their own transgressions, under the direction of 
the spirit of God : a thing writers in general are very shy about. 
Moses tells us how he spake unadvisedly with his lips, and was 
punished for it. David's penitential psalms record the bitter tears 
he wept over his transgression ; tears which could not wash out 
the sentence against the man after God's own heart. — " The Sword 
shall never depart from thy house." An overburdened people, a 
rotten court, a falling empire, continual strife, a family of scolding 
women, only one son, and he a fool — might have been considered 
sufficient marks of God's displeasure, without causing the wisest 
of men to pen and publish to the world, such a minute record of 
his madness, folly, and misery, as we find in Ecclesiastes. But 
these shipwrecked mariners were divinely directed to pile up the 
sad memorials of their errors, on the reefs where they were 
wrecked, as beacons of warning to all inexperienced voyagers on 
life's treacherous sea. The light-house is built by the same 
authority as the custom-house. 

Now let us take note of the objects of our investigation. "We 
are not in search of the literary beauty or poetic inspiration of 
the Bible; but we inquire by what right does it command our 
obedience ? Nor are we about to inquire whether, when we have 
tried the Bible at the tribunal of our reason, we shall give it a 
diploma to .commend it to the patronage of other critics ; but 
whether it comes to us attested by such evidence of being the 
word of God, that our reason shall reverently bow down before it 

163 



4 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

as a higher authority, and seek light from it by which to judge 
of all spiritual and moral matters. 

Attempts are continually made to confuse these great questions, 
by concessions of the literary excellence of the Bible, on the part 
of those who deny its Divine authority. For instance, one of the 
modern oracles of infidelity says, and his admirers incessantly 
repeat the grand discovery: "The writings of the Prophets con- 
tain nothing above the reach of the human faculties. Here are 
noble and spirit-stirring appeals to men's conscience, patriotism, 
honor, and religion ; beautiful poetic descriptions, odes, hymns, 
expressions of faith almost beyond praise. But the mark of 
human infirmity is on them all, and proofs or signs of miraculous 
inspiration are not found in them."* 

■ But what do the toiling millions of earth care about beautiful 
poetic descriptions of a heaven and a hell that have no reality ? Or 
what does it signify to you or me, reader, that the Bible raises 
its head far above the other cedars of earthly literature — if its top 
reaches not to heaven, can it make a ladder long enough to carry 
us there ? The Bible contains predictions beyond the reach of the 
human faculties, as we have fully proved. t These predictions at 
least are from God, and have no mark of human infirmity on them. 

It does not at all meet this question to grant, as many Panthe- 
ists do, that the Bible is inspired — -just as every work of genius is 
inspired; nor to profess that they believe the Bible to be from 
God — just as every pure and holy thought, and every good work, 
proceed from him. When the asserters of the Divine authority 
of the Bible speak of it as inspired, they mean that it is so as no 
other boo*k is ; and when they speak of it as coming from God, 
they mean that it does not come simply as a gift of God's bounty, 
as the soldier's land-warrant comes from the government; but 
that it comes like the laws of Congress, carrying authority with 
it to command our obedience. 

We feel no interest whatever in the discussion of an inspiration, 
"like God's omnipotence, not limited to the few writers claimed by 
the Jews, Christians and Mahommedans, but as extensive as the 
race;" t or perhaps as extensive as all creation, and leading us to 
regard even "the solemn notes of the screech owl" as inspired. || 

* Parker's Absolute Religion, p. 205. f See Tract 29 « 

X Parker's Discourses on Religion, p. 161. 

II Mackoiglit's Doctrine of Inspiration, p. 161, and seq< 

164 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 5 

"What manner of use could the Bible be to an ignorant soul grop- 
ing its way to truth and holiness, or to a dying sinner hastening 
to the judgment seat of God, if it were true, that, " the Bible's own 
teaching on the subject is that every thing good in any book, 
person, or thing, is inspired ? Milton and Shakspeare, and Bacon 
and the Canticles, the Apocalypse, and the Sermon on the Mount, 
and the Eighth Chapter of the Romans are all inspired. How 
much inspiration they respectively contain must be gathered from 
their results." * 

This liberal grant of inspiration, alike to Moses and Mahommed, 
to Christ and to Shakspeare, is evidently a denial of Divine Au- 
thority to any of them. If Hamlet, and the Sermon on the Mount, 
and the Koran, are all of a like Divine Authority, or all alike with- 
out any, it is merely a matter of taste whether I worship at Niblo's 
or the Tabernacle, or keep a harem in my house, or a prayer meet- 
ing. Most men, however, find it hard to believe that Christ and 
Mahommed taught exactly the same religion, or that the church 
and the theater are precisely equal and alike in their influences on 
the heart and life ; and so they reject several of these inspired men 
and cleave to the one they like, best. Whereas, if this Pantheist 
theory be true, they ought not to act in such a disrespectful way 
toward any inspired man ; but ought to attend the church, the 
theater, and the harem with equal regularity, and serve God, mam- 
mon, and Belial with equal diligence. 

"Oh/' it is replied, "they are not all inspired in the same de- 
gree. It does not follow that because Byron, and Shakspeare, and 
Paul are all inspired, that their writings will produce exactly the 
same results, or that they are alike suitable for every constitution 
and temper. How much inspiration they severally possess must 
be determined by their results. The tree is known by its fruits; 
and experience is the price of truth." 

But truth may be bought too dear. I am sick and need some 
medicine, but know not exactly what kind, or how much to take. 
" Here," says my Pantheist friend, " is a whole drug store for you. 
Every drawer, and pot, and bottle is full of medicine. Help your- 
self." But, my good sir, how am I to know what kind will suit me ? 
There are poisons here as well as medicines ; and I can not tell the 
difference between arsenic and calomel. One of my neighbors died 

* Macknight's Doctrine of Inspiration, ps. 192, etc. 

165 



6 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

the other day from swallowing oxalic acid instead of Glauber's Salts. 
Be kind enough to put the poisons on one shelf and the medicines 
on the other, or, at least, to label them, so that I may know which 
to choose and which to refuse. "Oh," says my Pantheist friend, 
this distinction between medicines and poisons is all an antiquated, 
vulgar prejudice. What you call poisons are really medicines- 
Medical virtue is not confined to the few specifics recognized by the 
Homoepathics, the Regular Faculty, or the Hydropathics, but is as 
extensive as the world. Every thing on earth has a medical virtue ; 
but how much, and of what sort, must be determined by experi- 
ence. In fact, you must just try for yourself whether any particu- 
lar drug will kill you or cure you. So here is the whole drug store 
to begin your cure with." A valuable gift, truly ! " In the day we 
eat thereof, our eyes will be opened, and we shall be as gods, 
knowing good and evil/' I think, reader, you and I will let some- 
body else try that experiment. 

" Quite right! Why should men throw away their common sense 
and swallow every thing as inspired ? " says our friend of the 
rationalistic school. " God has given us reason to discern between 
good and evil, and commanded us to use it. Prove the Spirits 
whether they be of God. I speak as to wise men. Judge ye what I 
say — is the language of Scripture. The right of private judgment 
is the inalienable inheritance of Protestants. I am for examining 
the Bible according to the principles of reason and truth. ' That 
only is to be regarded as true and valid which is matter of per- 
sonal conviction/ The Old Testament is in many places contrary 
to my convictions of truth and reason. I find that it consists of a 
great variety of treatises of various degrees of merit. Even in the 
same book it presents often strange contrasts — sublime moral pre- 
cepts on one page ; on the next, solemn requirements of frivolous 
ceremonies, utterly unworthy of God; or solemn narrations of mir- 
aculous interferences with the established course of nature, which, 
taken literally, are absolutely incredible. The judicious reader 
must therefore discriminate between those divine precepts of mor- 
ality which were infused into the minds of the Hebrew sages, and 
those Jewish prejudices which their education and character in- 
clined them to regard as equally important ; and he must divest the 
narrative of facts as they actually occurred, from the national le- 
gends and traditions which the compilers of the Pentateuc 7 ided to 
adorn the history." 
166 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 7 

This, it will be seen, at once raises another and very important 
question, namely : By what standard are the writings of the Old 
Testament to be judged? Or rather it settles the question by tak- 
ing it for granted that every inquirer is to judge them according to 
his own notions of reason and truth. But this does not help me 
out of my dimculty ; for it supposes me already to possess the 
knowledge and the virtue which a revelation from God is needed to 
communicate. If I am able, by my own reason, to construct a per- 
fect standard of morals to judge the Bible by, what need have I for 
the Bible revelation ? And if I have the right to refuse obedience 
to any commands I may judge frivolous or unreasonable, before 
I know whether they came from God or not, and am bound to obey 
only those which agree with my notions of right, what authority 
has the law of God? A revelation from God which should submit 
its truths to be judged by the ignorance, and its commands by the 
inclinations, of sinful men, would by that very submission declare its 
worthlessness. The use of a Divine Revelation is either to tell us 
some truth of which we are ignorant, or to enjoin some duty to 
which we are disinclined. 

Besides, it is not possible to make any such dissection of the 
moral precepts of the Bible, from the miraculous history which 
forms their skeleton, as will leave them either truth or authority. 
It is the miraculous history that gives sanction to the Divine 
morality, and without it, the ten commandments would have no 
more hold on any man's conscience, than the wise saws which 
Poor Richard says. Take for instance, one of the first and most 
important of the Bible moralities — the sacredness of marriage — 
which is wholly based upon a narrative of events utterly unparal- 
leled; and if judged by the usual course of nature, perfectly in- 
credible. The original difference in the formation of man and 
woman, and God's making at first one man and one woman, and 
joining them together with his blessing, constitute the reasons, and 
consecrate the pledge of marriage. " For this cause shall a man 
leave his father and mother — although the claims of the parental re- 
lation are very strong — and cleave to his wife — with whom it may 
be he has but a few weeks' acquaintance — and they two shall he one 
jlesh. What therefore God hath joined together let not man put 
asunder.'' But if the cause had no existence, save in the brain 
of som.f 5 . antediluvian novel-writer, and God did not so unite them, 

167 



8 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

the consequence is only a notion also, and any man may leave 
his wife whenever he likes. 

By far the most incredible narrative in the Bible is contained 
in the first verse: "In the beginning God created the heavens and 
the earth." All the other miracles recorded in it, sink into famili- 
arity compared with this stupendous display of the supernatural. 
To the believer of this first great miracle, none of its subsequent 
narratives can seem incredible. But it is precisely upon this 
unexampled and incredible narrative, that the whole structure 
of Bible morality is built. If this extraordinary narrative be 
rejected as false, all the moral precepts of the Bible are not worth 
a feather. The morality of the Bible, then, stands or falls with 
its history. 

If we proceed now to examine the facts of the history, it is 
evident neither your reason or mine, nor our personal convictions, 
can be any rule of what is true and valid. The most that reason 
can say about history is, that the story seems probable ; but so 
does any well-written novel : or that it is improbable ; but truth 
is often stranger than fiction ; and every genuine history relates 
wonderful events. Neither does our personal knowledge enable 
us to tell what was the original historical fact, how much was 
added by the Hebrew prejudices of Moses, and which are the 
legends with which it was afterward adorned ; for neither you nor 
X were there to see. Nor can any two of those critics, who have 
undertaken to divide the facts from the fables according to their 
personal convictions of what is true and valid, agree upon any 
common principle of gleaning, or in gathering in their results. 
And if they could, the crop would not be worth barn-room ; for 
the only conclusion in which they seem at all likely to agree is, 
that the story of creation in the beginning of the book is a myth, 
like one of Ovid's Metamorphoses ; and that the prophecy of the 
resurrection at the end, is another ; and that there are a great 
many legends in the middle. Now, if so, why winnow such chaff? 

But while the Jewish people exist as a distinct race, it is impos- 
sible rationally to deny some extraordinary origin of their extra- 
ordinary character and customs ; and the Bible is the only history 
which pretends to tell it. The utter failure of Rationalistic criti- 
cism to give any rational account of the facts which must be admit- 
ted to account for the existence of the Jews as a distinct people, is 
ludicrously apparent in the attempts generally made to explain the 
168 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 9 

plagues of Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, and the miracles of 
the desert, as merely natural phenomena, dextrously used by 
Moses and Aaron to suit their purpose. 

It is alleged that these enthusiastic patriots, full of the super- 
stitions of an early age, which attributed all prodigies to God, and 
placed all heroes under his guidance, succeeded by their fiery elo- 
quence in inspiring their captive countrymen with the love of lib- 
erty; and had political dexterity enough to create a faction in their 
favor in the Egyptian cabinet. Then taking advantage of a for- 
tunate succession of calamities arising from natural causes, — 
such as an extraordinary rising of the Nile, in consequence of 
which it was more deeply colored than usual with the red mud 
of Nubia, and overflowed the country to a greater extent than 
usual, leaving on its retreat numerous ponds which of course bred 
swarms of frogs and gnats, and raised malaria, spreading various 
sicknesses over the land both to man and beast ; a devastating 
visit of locusts, the well-known scourge of Africa ; a remarkable 
thunderstorm, accompanied with hail, causing great havoc of 
growing crops, as such hail storms always do; followed by the 
chamsin, or dust-storm from the desert, darkening the air with 
clouds of dust and sand ; and by an extraordinary mortality, the 
natural result of these various causes, — they persuaded the su- 
perstitious Egyptians that these calamities were tokens of the 
displeasure of the God of the Hebrews, and improved the opportu- 
nity to escape while the resources of the Egyptians were exhausted, 
and their minds confounded by these various misfortunes. Leading 
them to that part of the Red Sea south of Suez, where a succession 
of shoals, or rather a bar, stretches across from the Egyptian to the 
Arabian side, they crossed safely at low water, while the Egyptian 
army perished by the rising of the tide ; and the Israelites betaking 
themselves to a wandering, pastoral life in the wilderness of Arabia, 
lived, as the Bedouins do at this day, on the milk of their flocks 
and the manna which was spontaneously produced by the tamarisk 
trees of Sinai, — where they remained until they had framed a civil 
and religious code, and whence they prosecuted their conquests in 
various directions for fifty years, until their invasion of Palestine. 
This is the sum of what, with various modifications, Rationalist 
writers and preachers present us, as the genuine historic basis of 
the Mosaic narrative. 

It really does seem to have been very fortunate for the Israelites, 

169 



10 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

that so many misfortunes should happen to fall upon their oppres- 
sors, all in one season, and just at the time that men of such clev- 
erness as Moses and Aaron were among them ; and that the Egyp- 
tians should luckily have imbibed the superstition, that all nature 
was under the direction of a Supreme Moral Governor, who was 
able and willing to wield all the elements for the punishment of 
oppressors. Would it not be for the interests of liberty if Ameri- 
can slaveholders were also infected with this superstition ? 

It was also very lucky for these poor, overworked, and oppressed 
slaves, — the class which in all other ages and countries suffers most 
from hard times, — that they should have escaped unhurt by these 
calamities ; for if they had suffered by them as well as the Egyp- 
tians, they could not have persuaded them that God favored Israel. 

Here one can not but wonder that these learned Egyptians, 
whose colleges of priests were planted on the banks of the Nile, and 
who had made the climate, soil, and productions of their native land 
their constant study, should have been so ignorant of these natural 
causes of the plagues — so easily discovered now-a-days by any body 
who makes a summer trip to Egypt — as to be terrified into emanci- 
pating their slaves by a stormy season. Just imagine to yourself a 
couple of Abolitionist lecturers proceeding to Lexington and com- 
manding the slaveholders of Kentucky to liberate their slaves im- 
mediately, on pain of the Ohio being muddy during high water, 
and the swamps of the river-bottom being full of frogs and mosqui- 
toes ! But this interpretation does not reach the climax of absurd- 
ity till our Rationalist Punch, by way of signalizing his deliver- 
ance from Egyptian bondage, makes Pharaoh and his army forget 
that the tide ebbs and flows in the Red Sea, raises the tide over a 
shoal faster than cavalry could gallop away from it, gathers an an- 
nual crop of twenty millions of bushels of manna from the thorn- 
bushes of Sinai, and feeds three millions of men, women, and chil- 
dren for forty years upon purgative medicine ! ! ! 

" We must then give up the problem as insoluble ; for if reason 
be insufficient to give authority to the Bible, and criticism fails to 
discover its truth, how are we to know that it possesses either V 

Just as you would discover the truth of any other history, or the 
authority of any other law. You do not say, " The tale of the suc- 
cessive swellings of the Catawba, the Yadkin, and the Dan, — three- 
times in a fortnight, in Feb., 1781, immediately after the American 
army had retreated across these rivers, preventing Cornwallis and the 
170 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 11 

British forces from crossing till the little handful of -weary and fam- 
ished patriots had escaped — savors of the marvelous and leans so 
much toward the superstition of a special providence, that it must 
be rejected as not historical." You inquire if there be sufficient 
testimony to the fact. You do not say, "The Revised Statutes pre- 
sent internal evidence of being a collection of political tracts by 
various authors, written at different times, differing also in style, 
and of various degrees of merit, many of them contrary to my in- 
most personal convictions ; therefore I can not acknowledge them as 
true and valid." You simply ask if this be a true copy of the laws 
passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor? Our in- 
quiry about the truth of the history, and the authority of the laws 
of the Bible, must be of the same kind — an inquiry after testimony. 
Is this book genuine or a forgery? Is it a true history or a lying 
romance? Have we any testimony on the subject? 

It is important at the outset to know how long these documents 
have undoubtedly existed. No one denies that they were in exist- 
ence 1800 years ago. Indeed, the first literary attack on them 
which has been recorded was made about that time ; and Josephus* 
defence of the Scriptures against Apion still exists. The very 
same writings which the Protestant churches now acknowledge as 
canonical, and none other, were then acknowledged to be of Divine 
authority by the Jews. It is true they bound their Bibles differ- 
ently from ours, but the contents were the very same. They made 
up their parchments of the 39 books in 22 rolls or volumes, one for 
every letter of their alphabet — putting Judges and Ruth, the two 
books of Samuel, the two books of Kings, the two books of Chron- 
icles, Ezra and Nehemiah, Jeremiah's Prophecy and Lamenta- 
tions, and the twelve minor prophets, in one volume respectively. 
They also distinguished the Five Books of Moses as The Law; 
the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon, as The 
Psalms ; and all the remainder as, The Prophets* Moreover, it is 
well known that 282 years before the Christian Era, these writings 
were translated into Greek and widely circulated in all parts of the 
world. They were, in fact, not only popular, but received as of 
Divine authority by the Jews at that time, read in their Syna- 
gogues in public worship, and regarded with sacred reverence. 
How did they come to receive them in this manner ? 



* Josephus against Apion, book 1, sec. 8. Home's Introduction, chap. 2, sec. 1. 

171 



12 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

These books are not such as any person would forge to gain 
popularity or make money by. There is nothing in them to bribe 
the good opinion of influential people, or catch the favor of the 
multitude. On the contrary, their stern severity and unsparing 
denunciation of popular vice and profitable sin must have secured 
their rejection by the Jewish people, had they not been constrained 
by undeniable evidence to acknowledge their Divine Authority. 
They set out with the assertion of the Divine Authority of the 
Law of Moses, and every where sharply reprove princes, priests, 
and people for breaking it. The Prophets, so far from seeking 
popularity, are fool-hardy enough to denounce the bonnets, hoops, 
and flounces of the ladies, and to cry, Woe! against the regular 
business of the most respectable note-shavers* — to croak against the 
march of intellect, and shake public confidence in the prosperity 
of their great countryf — to ally themselves with fanatic abolition- 
ists, and introduce agitating political questions into the pulpit ; 
crying, Woe to him that useth his neighbor's service without wages, 
and givetk him not for his work.% To crown all, they organized 
Abolition clubs to procure immediate emancipation, and published 
incendiary proclamations in the cities of the slaveholders: § and, 
strange to say, they were allowed to escape with their lives; and 
their writings were held sacred by the children of those very men 
and women they so unsparingly denounced — a conclusive proof 
that the calamities they predicted had compelled them to acknowl- 
edge these prophets as the heralds of God. The proof must have 
been conclusive indeed, which compelled the Jews to acknowledge 
the writings of the Prophets as sacred. 

Another very striking feature of these writings is their mutual 
connection with each other. They were written at various inter- 
vals, during a period of a thousand years' duration, by shepherds 
and kings, by prophets and priests, by governors of states and 
gatherers of sycamore fruit ; in deserts and in palaces, in camps 
and in cities, in Egypt and Syria, in Arabia and Babylon ; under 
the iron heel of despotic oppression and amid the liberty of the 
most democratic republic the world ever saw: yet, amid all this 
variety of authorship, and change of circumstances, and lapse of 
time, they ever hold to one great theme, always assert the same 



♦Isaiah, Hi: 16. Ezek., XTiii : 12. f Jere., 21 ch., and xxii: 16. 
% Jere., xxii: 13. § Jere., chap. 34. 

172 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 13 

great principles, and perpetually claim connection with the writers 
who have preceded them. There is nothing like this in the his- 
tories of other nations. Two centuries will work such changes of 
opinion, that you can not find now-a-days any historian who ap- 
proves the sentiments of Pepys or Clarendon, whatever use he 
may make of their facts. But the historians of the Bible not 
only refer to their predecessors' writings, but refer to them as of 
acknowledged Divine authority. Thus the very latest of these 
books gives the weight of its testimony to the first — " And they 
set the priests in their divisions, and the Levites in their courses 
for the service of God, which is at Jerusalem, as it is written in 
the booh of Moses."* And Daniel speaks of the books of Moses 
as well known when he says, " Therefore the curse is poured upon 
us, and the oath that is written in the Law of Moses, the servant 
of God." t The shortest book in the Old Testament — the prophecy 
of Obadiah, consisting only of twenty sentences — contains twenty- 
five allusions to the preceding histories and laws. The last of the 
Prophets shuts up the volume with a command to " Remember 
the law of Moses." In fact, just as the Epistles prove the exist- 
ence and acknowledged authority of the Gospels ; so do the Proph- 
ets prove the existence and acknowledged authority of the Law 
of Moses. They were acknowledged not merely by one generation 
of the Jewish people, but by the nation during the whole period 
of its national existence : and they are of such a character, and so 
closely connected by references from one to the other, that they 
must then, and now, be taken as one whole — all accepted, or all 
rejected together. 

The reader of the Old Testament will speedily find that these 
writings are not merely a connected history of the nation, of great 
general interest, like Bancroft's or Macauley's, but of no such spe- 
cial interest to any individual as to force him, by a sense of self- 
interest, or the danger of loss of liberty or property, to correct their 
errors. On the contrary, every farmer in Palestine was deeply 
concerned in the truth and accuracy of the Bible; for it contained 
not only the general boundaries of the country, and of the particu- 
lar tribes ; like the survey of the Maine boundary, or of Mason 
and Dixon's line; but it delineated particular estates also, and was 
in fact, the Report of the Surveyor-General, deposited in the county 

• Ezra, 6 ; 18. t Danifl, 9 ; 11. 

173 



14 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

court for reference, in case of any litigation about sale or inherit- 
ance of property.* The genealogies of the tribes and families were 
also preserved in these writings ; and on the authenticity and cor- 
rectness of these records, the inheritance of every farm in the land 
depended ; for as no lease ran more than fifty years, every farm 
returned to the heirs of the original settler, at the year of jubilee. t 
Thus every Jewish farmer had a direct interest in these sacred re- 
cords ; and it would be just as hard to forge records for the county 
courts of Ohio, and pass them off upon the citizens as genuine, and 
plead them in the courts as valid, as to impose at first, or falsify 
afterward, the records of the Commonwealth of Israel. 

This will appear more clearly, when we consider that they con- 
tained also the laws of the land — the Constitution of the United 
States of Israel, with the statutes at large — according to which, 
every house and farm and garden in the whole country was pos- 
sessed — every court of justice was guided? — every election was 
held, from the election of a petty constable, to that of governor of 
the state \ — and the militia enrolled, mustered, officered, and called 
out to the field of battle. || These laws prescribed the way in which 
every house must be built, regulated the weaver in weaving his 
cloth, and the tailor in making it, and the cooking of every break- 
fast, dinner and supper eaten by any Israelite over the world, from 
that day to this. 1]" Now, let any one who thinks it would be an 
easy matter to forge such a series of documents, and get people to 
receive and obey them, try his hand in making a volume of Acts 
of Assembly, and passing it off upon the people of Ohio for genu- 
ine. * Let him bring an action into one of the courts, and persuade 
the judges to give a decision in his favor, upon the strength of his 
forged or falsified statutes, and then he may hope to convince us 
that the Laws of Moses are simply a collection of religious tracts, 
which came to be held sacred through lapse of time, nobody knows 
how or why. 

To a Jew living before the coming of Christ, who received the 
unanimous testimony of his nation, handed down from generation 
to generation, confirmed by all the commemorative ceremonies of 
the Passover and the Sacrifices, the observance of the Sabbath, and 
the reading of the Law and the Prophets in the Synagogue, the 

* Joshua, chs. 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19. f 1 Chron., chs. 1, 2,3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 ; Lev. 25. 
% Exo., xxi : 6. Deut., i : 16, ch. 19. \ Exo., xviii : 21. \ Deut. 20 ch. Numb, x: 9. 
\ Deut., xxii : 8, 11, 12. Lev., ch. 11. 

174 , 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 15 

singing of the historical Psalms in the Temple, and the execution 
of the Laws of Moses in the courts of justice, and by the very 
existence of the Jewish nation as a distinct people, no doubt could 
remain that truths so unpopular, and laws so burdensome, could 
never have been received by any nation, unless constrained by 
some superior power; nor that the miracles by which these laws 
were authenticated, and the national existence of the people of 
Israel was secured, were genuine and divine. The chain of his- 
torical and internal evidence is too strong to be broken, while the 
Jewish nation exists. 

But yet this historical and internal evidence of the authority of 
the Old Testament is but the smallest part of that which we pos- 
sess, who have the testimony of Christ on this subject. For this 
testimony removes the question from the mists of antiquity, and 
even from the debatable ground of historic certainty, and resolves 
the whole process of searching for, and comparing and examining 
a host of second-hand witnesses, into the easy and certain one of 
hearing the author himself say whether he acknowledges this book 
to be his or not. Christians receive the Old Testament as the 
Word of God, because Jesus says so. 

Now, reader, it is of the utmost importance tnat you should stop 
just here, and give a plain, confident answer to these questions : — 
Dost thou believe upon the Son of God ? Is Jesus the Messiah of 
whom Moses in the Law, and the Prophets, did write ? Are you 
perfectly satisfied of the truth of the New Testament, and willing 
to venture your eternal salvation upon the words of Christ con- 
tained in it ? For if not, of what use is it for you to trouble your- 
self about the Old Testament ? You might as well waste your time 
in examining the genuineness of the bills of a broken bank : they 
may be genuine or they may be forgeries ; but who cares? They 
will never be paid. If the first promises of the Bank of Heaven, to 
send the Messiah 1800 years ago, have been fulfilled, its other 
paper may be also valuable : if not, it must be equally worthless. 
If the New Testament be not of Divine Authority, you may place 
the Prophets on the same shelf with the Poems of Ossian : and then 
follows the serious consequence, that there is not a grain of hope 
left for you or for any man on earth. If Jesus be indeed an Al- 
mighty Savior, and if he has indeed risen from the dead, then, 
through the power of his mighty love, your filthy soul may be 
washed from its sins, and your mortal body may be raised from the 

175 



16 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

rottenness of the grave. But if Christ be not risen, you are yet in 
your sins. You have no notion that any of the gods of the heathen, 
or the precepts of the Koran, can purify your heart. You know 
well that Infidelity never sanctified any of your comrades. Con- 
science tells you that you are not any better now than you were a 
year ago, but worse. You are yet in your sins ; and in them 3^ou 
must live and die ! Aye, while your immortal soul lives, while the 
laws of human nature continue, you must carry those brands of 
infamy on } r our character, and daily progress from bad to worse — 
sinking deeper and deeper in the contempt of all intelligent beings ; 
and, were there no other avenger, in the remorse and despair of 
your own mind, you must experience the horrors of perdition. 
Jesus, able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him, 
is your only hope. There is none other name given under heaven 
among men whereby we must be saved. If his gospel be true, you 
may be saved : if it is false, you must be damned. 

If you have the shadow of a doubt of the truth of the New Testa- 
ment, go over the subject again ; re-read the former Tracts of this 
series; pray to God for light and truth: above all, read the Book 
itself again and again: and if, in your case, as in that of one of 
the most famous teachers of German Neology — De Wette — the 
careful study of the New Testament impels you to rush through all 
the mists of doubt to the higher standpoint of a lofty faith, and the 
sunshine of real religion ; and if with him you can now say, "Only 
this one thing I know, that in no other name is there salvation 
than in the name of Jesus Christ the crucified, and that for human- 
ity there is nothing higher than the incarnation of Deity set before 
us in him, and the Kingdom of God established by him/ 7 * you 
may then go on with your inquiry into the Divine authority of the 
Old Testament. With the Master himself before you, the Au- 
thor, the Inspirer, by whom, and for whom, the Prophets spake, 
and to whom all the Scriptures point, you will not think of wasting 
time in examining second-hand evidence ; but go direct to Jesus 
himself. His testimony will not be merely so much additional tes- 
timony — another candle added to the chandelier by whose light you 
have perused the evidences of the Scriptures: it will shine out on 
your soul as the light of the Sun of Righteousness with healing on 
his wings. Every word from his lips will awaken in your heart 

* Preface to Exposition of the Apocalypse. 

176 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 17 

the voice from heaven, " This is my beloved Son. Hear him." 
What saith Christ, then, respecting the Old Testament ? 

The moment you open the New Testament to make this inquiry, 
you are met by a reference to the Old. " The book of the genera- 
tion of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham." is 
its formal title : and the most cursory perusal tells you that you 
have taken up, not a separate and independent work, which you can 
profitably peruse and understand without much reference to some 
foregoing volumes — as one might read Abbott's Life of Napoleon 
without needing at the same time to study The History of the Cru- 
sades — but that you have taken up a continuation of some former 
work, — the last volume in fact of the Old Testament, — and that you 
can not understand even the first chapter without a careful reading 
of the foregoing volumes. Before you have finished the first chap- 
ter you meet with the most unequivocal assertion of the harmony 
of the gospels and the prophecies, and of the Divine authority of 
both — " Now all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was 
spoken of the Lord by the prophet, etc." The whole tenor of the 
New Testament corresponds to this beginning, teaching that the 
birth, doctrine, miracles, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and 
second coming of the Lord, are the fulfillments of the Old Testament 
promises and prophecies ; of which no less than a hundred and 
thirty-nine are expressly quoted, beginning with Moses and ending 
with Malachi. 

We can not explain this by saying, with the mythical school of 
interpreters, that this was merely the opinion of the writers of the 
gospels and of the Jews of their age ; whose longings for the Mes- 
siah led them to imagine some curious coincidences between the 
events of Christ's life and the utterances of these ancient oracles to 
be really fulfillments ; and that Christ did not deem it needful in 
all cases to undeceive them. For to suppose that Christ — the 
Truth — would sanction or connive at any such sacrilegious decep- 
tion, is at once to deprive him, not only of his Divine character, 
but of all claim to common honesty. So far from the Jews longing 
for any such events as those which fulfilled the prophecies, they 
despised the Messiah in whom they were fulfilled, and refused to 
believe in him ; and his disciples were as far from the gospel ideal 
of the Messiah, when Jesus needed to reproach them with, " O t 
fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken."* 

* Luke, xxiv ; 25. 

12 2 177 



18 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

It was not the Jews, nor yet the disciples, but the Lord himself 
who perpetually insisted on the Divine authority of the Old Testa- 
ment, as The Word of his Father, and the sufficient attestation of 
his own Divine character, after this manner : Ye have not his word 
abiding in you, for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search 
the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they 
are they which testify of me. Had ye believed Moses, ye would have 
believed me, for he wrote of me; but if ye believe not his writings, 
how shall ye believe my words?* 

His first recorded sermon contains a remarkable and solemn 
attestation to the Divine authority of the Old Testament, and of 
his own relation to it as its substance and supporter. Think not 
that 1 came to destroy the Law or the Prophets; I came not to 
destroy, but to fulfill. For, verily I say unto you, till heaven and 
earth pass, one jot, or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the 
Law till all be fulfilled.^ The whole of this discourse is an expo- 
sition of the true principles of the Old Testament, stripping off the 
rubbish by which tradition had made void the Law of God, and 
enforcing its precepts by the sanction of his own authority. And 
in one of his last discourses after his resurrection : Beginning at 
Modes, and all the Prophets, he expounded to them in all the Scrip- 
ture, the things concerning himself. And he said unto them, These 
are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you — that 
all things which were written in the Law of Moses, and in the Pro- 
phets, and in the Psalms, concerning me, should be fulfilled. Then, 
opened he their understandings, that they might understand the 
Scriptures.% 

In this distinct enumeration of the whole of the Scriptures of 
the Old Testament ; the assertion, that they all treated of him, 
and that their principal predictions were fulfilled in him ; and in 
his bestowal of divine illumination to enable them to under- 
stand these divine oracles, we have such an endorsement of 
their character by the Truth himself, as must command the faith 
and obedience of every believer in him. Had no objections been 
raised against particular doctrines or features of the Old Testa- 
ment, we would stop here ; perfectly satisfied with the attestations 
to the truth of its history, given by the continual references, and 
to the authority of its precepts, by the solemn formal declarations 



* John, v ; 38-47. f Mat., v ; 17, etc. t Luke, ch. 24 throughout. 

178 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 19 

of the Son of God. But some popular objections to its complete- 
ness and perfection, demand a brief notice. 

1. The general character of the Old Testament being then ascer- 
tained beyond doubt, our first inquiry must be as to the integrity 
and completeness of the collection. For it is manifest that their 
Divine authority being admitted, any attempt to add to them any 
human writings, or to take away those which were from God, would 
be a crime so serious in its consequences, that it could not escape 
the notice of him who severely rebuked even the verbal traditions 
by which the Jews made void the law of God. Now we are told 
by some that a great many inspired books have been lost ; and 
they enumerate the Prophecy of Enoch; the Book of the Wars 
of the Lord; the Book of Joshua; the Book of Iddo, the Seer; 
the Book of Nathan, the Prophet ; the Acts of Kehoboam ; the Book 
of Jehu the son of Hanani; the Five Books of Solomon, on trees, 
beasts, fowls, serpents, and fishes — which are alluded to in the 
Bible. 

If the case were so, it is difficult to see what objection could be 
raised against the Divine authority of the books we have, because 
of the Divine authority of those we have not ; for it is not supposed 
that one divinely inspired book would contradict another. Nor 
yet can we see how the loss of these books should disprove their 
inspiration, much less the inspiration of those which remain, any 
more than the want of a record of the multitude of words and 
works of Jesus himself which were never committed to writing,* 
should be an argument against the Divine authority of the Ser- 
mon on the Mount. It will hardly be asserted that God is bound 
to reveal to us every thing that the human race ever did, and to 
preserve such records through all time, or lose his right to demand 
our obedience to a plain revelation of his will ; or that we do well 
to neglect the salvation of our own souls until we obtain an infal- 
lible knowledge of the Acts of Rehoboam. 

But there is not the shadow of a proof that any of these were 
inspired books, or that some of them were books at all. The Bible 
no where says that Enoch wrote his prophecy, or that Solomon 
read his lectures on natural history ; nor of what religious interest 
they would have been to us any more than the hard questions of 
the Queen of Sheba, and his answers to them. Though the loss 
of these ancient chronicles may be regretted by the antiquarian, 

* John, xx; 30. 

179 



20 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

the christian feels not at all concerned about it; knowing as he 
does on the testimony of Christ, that the Holy Scriptures, as he 
and his Apostles delivered them to us, contain all that we need to 
know in order to repent of our sins, lead holy lives, and go to 
heaven ; and that we have the very same Bible of which Jesus said 
They have Hoses and the Prophets ; let them hear them. If they 
believe not Moses and the Prophets, neither would they believe though 
one rose from the dead.* 

2. Another objection is, that the religion of the Old Testament 
was essentially different from that of the New. It is at once 
acknowledged, that the light which Christ shed on our rela- 
tions to God and to our brethren of mankind is so much clearer 
than that of the Old Testament that we see our duties more plainly, 
and are more inexcusable for neglecting them, than those who had 
nob the benefit of Christ's teaching. And no objection can be 
raised against God for not sending his Son sooner, or for not giving 
more light to the world before his coming, unless it can be shown 
that he is debtor to mankind, and that they were making a good 
use of the light he gave them. So that the question is not, Did 
God give as full and expanded instructions to the church in her 
infancy as he has given in her maturity? but, Did he give instruc- 
tions of a different character? It is not, Did Christ reveal more 
than Moses? but, Did Christ contradict Moses? And here at the 
very outset we are met by Christ's own solemn formal disclaimer 
of any such intention ; " Think not that I come to destroy the Law 
and the Prophets. I come not to destroy, but to fulfill.' 1 And as to 
the actual working of the Christian religion, when Paul is asked, 
"Is the Law then against the promises of God?' ,J \ he indignantly 
replies " God forbid!" 

But it is urged, " Judaism is not Christianity. You have changed 
the sabbath, abolished the sacrifices, trampled upon the rules of 
living, eating and visiting only with the peculiar people, you 
neglect the passover, and drop circumcision, the seal of the cove- 
nant, all on the authority of Christ. Do you mean to say that 
these are not essential elements of the Old Testament religion V 

Undoubtedly. Outward ceremonies of any kind never were essen- 
tial parts of religion : " / will have mercy and not sacrifice," is an 
Old Testament proverb, which clearly tells us that outward cere- 
monies are merely means toward the great end of all religion 

* Luke, xvi: 29. f Gal., iii; 21. 

180 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 21 

" The law" says the Holy Ghost, by the pen of Paul, " was our 
schoolmaster to bring us to Christ." The bread of heavenly truth 
is served out to God's children now on ten thousand wooden 
tables instead of one brazen altar ; but it is made of the same corn 
of heaven, it is dispensed by the same hand of love, to a larger 
family, it is true, but received and eaten in the exercise of the 
very same religious feelings, by any hearer of the gospel in New 
York, as by Abraham on Moriah. By faith in Christ the sinner 
now is justified, "Even as Abraham believed God and it was 
imputed to him for righteousness.* So says one who knew both 
law and gospel well. " Do we then make void the law through 
faith 6 } God forbid! Yea we establish the law!"* The Epistles 
to the Komans and to the Hebrews, are just demonstrations of this 
truth, that the law was the blossom — the gospel the fruit. 

But it is alleged that the religion of the Old Testament could 
not but be defective, as it wanted the doctrines of immortality and 
the resurrection ; of which it is alleged, the Old Testament saints 
were ignorant. It were easy to prove, from their own words and 
conduct, that Job, Abraham, David and Daniel, were not ignorant 
of these great doctrines.f But the manner in which our Lord 
^proves the truth of the resurrection, by a reference to it as unde- 
niably taught in the Old Testament, must ever silence this objec- 
tion. " But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not 
read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, * I am the 
God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' 
God is not the God of the dead, but of the living."! 

3. Again, however, it is contended, "that the morality of the 
Old Testament was narrow and bigoted; requiring indeed, the 
observance of charity to the covenant people, but allowing Israel 
to hate all others as enemies, and as well expressed in the text, 
Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy." § 

But let it be noticed, that this is no text of Scripture, nor does 
our Lord so quote it. He does not say it is so written, but, ye have 
heard it said by them of old time. The first part is God's truth : 
the second is the devil's addition to it, which Christ clears away 
and denounces. It were easy to quote multitudes of passages from 
the Old Testament, commanding Israel to show kindness to the 

* Romans, cha. iv, v, and vi. f J° d j x * x : 25. Psalm, xvi : 10. Hebrews, xi : 13-16. 
Daniel, xii: 2-3. % Matthew, xxii : 32. \ Matthew, v : 43. 

181 



22 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

stranger, and a whole host of promises, that in them all the 
families of the earth should be blessed; any one of which would 
sufficiently refute the foolish notion, that the morality of the Old 
Testament was geographical, and its charity merely national. 
But the simple fact, that the most sublime sanction of world-wide 
benevolence which ever fell even from the lips of Christ himself, 
was uttered by him as the sum and substance of the teachings of 
the Old Testament, conclusively confutes this dogma. The Golden 
Rule was no new discovery, unless its author was mistaken, for 
he says : Therefore all things that ye would that men should do to 
you, do ye even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets.* 
He declares the very basis and foundation of the whole Old Testa- 
ment religion to be those eternal principles of godliness and charity, 
which he quotes in the very words of the Law : Then one of them 
which was a lawyer asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 
Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said 
unto him, thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great 
commandment. And the second is like unto it; thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law 
and the Prophets.f The Law and the Prophets then taught genuine 
world-wide benevolence, Christ being witness ; and the moral law 
of the Old Testament is the moral law of the New Testament, if 
we may believe the Lawgiver. 

4. " Still, it is alleged, it can not be denied that the writers of 
ihe Old Testament breathed a spirit of vindictiveness, and impre- 
cated curses on their enemies, utterly at variance with the precepts 
of the gospel, which commands us to bless and curse not ; and even 
in their solemn devotions uttered sentiments unfit for the mouth of 
any Christian ; nor that their views of the character of God were 
stern and gloomy, and that they represented the Hebrew Jehovah 
as an unforgiving and vengeful being, utterly different from the 
kind and loving Father whom Christ delighted to reveal." 

This, if the truth were told, is the grand objection to the Old 
Testament. The holy and righteous sin-hating God presented in 
its history, is the object of dislike. The God who drowned the old 
world — destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha by fire from heaven — 

* Matthew, vii : 12. f Matthew, xxiii : 35. 

182 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 23 

commanded the extermination of the lewd and bloody Canaanites — 
thundered his curses against sinners of every land and every age, 
saying " Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this law 
to do them' 7 — requiring all the people to say Amen* — is not the 
God whom Universalists can find in their hearts to adore. A 
mild, easy, good-natured being, who would allow men to live and 
die in sin without any punishment, would suit them better. They 
try to think that he is altogether such an one as themselves, and 
an approver of their sin. 

But it is worth while to inquire whether the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ be in this respect any thing different from the He- 
brew Jehovah, or whether the gospel has in the least degree 
lessened his displeasure against iniquity. Paul thought not that 
he was a different person, when he said, " We know him who hath 
said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will repay saith the Lord."t 
Jesus thought not that he was more lenient to sinners when he 
cried, " Woe unto thee, Chorazin I Woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! Thou 
Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven shalt be brought down to 
hell. It shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day 
of judgment than for thee."t It is not in the Old Testament, but 
in the New, that we are told that Jesus himself shall come " In 
flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and obey 
not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ ; who shall be punished with 
everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the 
glory of his power."$ It is not an old, bigoted Hebrew Prophet 
giving a vision of the Hebrew Jehovah, but the beloved disciple 
who leaned on Jesus' breast, picturing the Savior himself, who 
says, " He was clothed in a vesture dipped in blood ; and his name 
is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven 
followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and 
clean; and out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he 
shoidd smite the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron; 
and he treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of 
Almighty God.\\ 

Let no man imagine that the New Testament offers impunity 
to the wicked, or that the Old Testament denies mercy to the re- 
penting sinner, or that Christ exhibited any other God than the 
God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob — the same Hebrew Jehovah 

* Deut. xxvii : 26. f Heb. x: 20. % Matthew xi : 21. 

I 2 Thes. 1 ch. |l Revelation 19 ch. 

183 



24 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

who commands the wicked to forsake his way, and the unrigliteouh 
man his thoughts; and to return unto the Lord, and he will have 
mercy upon him ; and to our God and he will abundantly pardon* 
It is exceedingly strange that those who dwell upon the paternal 
character of God, as a distinctive feature of Christ's personal teach- 
ing, should have forgotten that the hymns of the Old Testament 
church, a thousand years before his coming, were full of this 
endearing relation; that it was by the first Hebrew Prophet that 
the Hebrew Jehovah declared, " Israel is my Son, my first born; 
therefore I say unto thee let my Son go that he may serve me;"f 
and that by the last of them he urges Israel to obedience by this 
tender appeal. " If I be a Father where is mine honor? "% It 
was not Christ, but David — one of those gloomy, stern, Hebrew 
Prophets — who penned that noble hymn to our Father in heaven, 
which Christ illustrated in his Sermon on the Mount: 

" The Lord is merciful and gracious, 
Slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. 
He will not always chide, 
Neither will he keep his anger for ever. 
He hath not dealt with us after our sins, 
Nor rewarded us according to our iniquities; 
For as the heaven is high above the earth, 
So great is his mercy to them that fear him; 
As far as east is from the west, 
So far hath he removed our transgressions from us. 
Like as a father pitieth his children, 
So the Lord pitieth them that fear him." 

Psalm 103. 
It is utter ignorance of the Old Testament which prompts any 
one to imagine that it presents any other character of God than 
" The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, and long suffer- 
ing, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thou- 
sands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will 
by no means clear the guilty."^ This is the name which God pro- 
claimed to Moses, and this is the character which he proclaimed 
in Christ, when he cried on the cross, "My God! My God! Why 
hast thou forsaken me ? But thou art holy, thou that inhabitest the 
praises of Israel." \\ Justice and mercy are united in Christ dying 
for the ungodly. 

* Isaiah, ch. 55. f Exodus iv : 22. J Mai. i, § Exodus, ch. xxxiv. fl Psalm, xxii. 

184 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 25 

It is untrue to say that the Prophets of the Old Testament 
were actuated by a spirit of malice, or of revenge for personal 
injuries as such, in praying for, or prophesying destruction on the 
inveterate enemies of God and his cause.* Of all scripture 
characters, David has been most defamed for vindictiveness ; but 
surely never was man more free from any such spirit, than the 
persecuted fugitive, who, with his enemy in his hand in the cave, 
and his confidential advisers urging him to take his life, cut off 
his skirt instead of his head ; and on another occasion prevented 
the stroke which would have smitten the sleeping Saul to the 
earth, and sent back even the spear and the cruse of water, the 
trophies of his generosity. When cursed himself, and defamed as 
a vengeful shedder of blood by the Benjamite, he could restrain 
the fury of his followers, protect the life of the ruffianly traitor, 
and thus appeal to God as the witness of his innocence: 

"0 Lord, my God! if I have done this, 
If there be iniquity in my hands. 

If I have rewarded evil to him that was at peace with me, 
Yea I have delivered him that without cause was mine enemy."f 

It is true that he does bitterly curse several living persons ; of 
whom it is observable that some had done him no sort of personal 
injury ; as Doeg the Edomite — the Nena Sahib of his day — who 
anticipated the scenes of Cawnpore in the streets of Nob; by mer- 
cilessly butchering unoffending men, helpless women, and innocent 
babes. But surely no friend of humanity can imagine that it is 
improper that the chief magistrate of Israel, anointed for the very 
purpose of being a terror to evil doers, should express his righteous 
indignation against such atrocities ; nor confound such public exe- 
cration with the petty gnawings of private revenge. Still less can 
the fearer of God doubt the propriety of his expressing by the 
mouth of his Prophet, that displeasure which he signally displayed 
by his providence, scathing and blasting the accursed wretch into 
a terror to all bloody and deceitful men who shall read their own 
warning in his doom. 

"God shall likewise destroy thee for ever, 
He shall take thee away and pluck thee from thy dwelling, 
And root thee out of the land of the living."^ 

* 2 Tim. iv : 14. f Psalm vii. 

X Psalms, 7 and 52, and 2 Samuel, xvi ch., and xxi and xxii ohs. 

185 



26 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

We have the most solemn assurance that every one of the his- 
torical incidents of scripture is recorded for our instruction, and 
that every prophecy gives a lesson to all ages. Now all these 
things happened unto them for ensamples, and they are written for 
our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come* The 
imprecations of the Bible against individual sinners are the gibbets 
on which these malefactors are hung up for warning to all men to 
flee the crimes that brought them to that fate. 

It is put beyond the possibility of doubt, by the combined testi- 
mony of the Lord and his Apostles, that by far the greater number 
of the curses which David uttered, he spoke in the person of Christ 
himself, of whom he was a type ; and with direct reference to the 
crimes and punishment of his enemies. Thus the 69th Psalm, and 
the 109th, pre-eminently the cursing Psalms, are most explicitly 
and repeatedly asserted by Christ, by Peter and by John, to belong 
to Christ, and to express his very words ; This scripture must 
needs, have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of 
David, spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them 
that took Jesus. For it is written in the book of Psalms, "Let his 
habitation be desolate, and let no man dwell therein." And, " His 
bishopric let another take."\ If any one feels reluctant to imagine 
that such cursings should fall from the lips of the merciful Savior, 
let him remember that the most awful curse which shall ever fall 
on the ears of terrified men, shall be pronounced by Jesus him- 
self, "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the Devil 
and his angels. "% The solemn facts of the Bible will not accomo- 
date themselves to our likes and dislikes. Christ loves righteous- 
ness and hates iniquity ; in the Bible he takes leave to say so, 
and he expects his people to share his feelings, and be willing to 
express them on fit occasions. 

Personal revenge and curses for mere personal injuries are for- 
bidden in the New Testament as well as in the Old. But it was 
an Apostle of Jesus Christ who cried, " If any man love not our 
Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Though we or an angel 
from heaven bring any other gospel unto you, let him be accursed." 
Nor until we can in some measure feel this holy indignation against 
ein, and this burning desire to see all tyranny, superstition, oppres- 

* 1 Cor., x ch. ; 

f John, ii : 17, xv : 25. xix : 28; Acts, i: 20; Matthew, xxv: 41. 

X Gal. i : 9. 1 Cor., xvi : 22. Eev., chs. xxix, xx and xxi, 

186 



MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 27 

eion, licentiousness and profanity, crushed and banished from the 
earth, can we pray in truth " Thy kingdom come." Still less can 
we be prepared for the rejoicings of heaven over the conquest of 
the enemies of God and man ; Rejoice over her thou heaven, and 
ye holy Apostles and Prophets, for God hath avenged you on her. 

Reader you hope to go to heaven ; but it may be a very different 
place from what you dream of. Did you ever study the employ- 
ment of the saints there? Are you washed from your sins? Is 
your mind purified from your carnal notions? Unless a man be 
born again he can not see the kingdom of God. Are your likes 
and dislikes, your sentiments and sympathies, your understanding 
and your will, all brought into subjection to Christ? Can you 
heartily love and adore a sin-hating, sin-avenging God ? Or do 
you shrink back in terror or dislike from God's denunciations of 
wrath against the wicked? Would your benevolence lead you to 
deal alike with the righteous and the wicked; and to abhor the 
thought of destroying them that destroy the earth ? Then how will 
you join in the hallelujahs of heaven; for God's judgments are the 
themes of thanksgiving and praise from saints and angels there, 
and this is their song : 

" Hallelujah, salvation, and glory, and honor, and 'power, unto 
the Lord, our God, for true and righteous are his judgments ; for 
lie hath judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with 
her fornication, and hath avenged the blood of his servants at her 
hands. And again they said, Hallelujah 1 And her smoke rose up 
for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, and the four 
living creatures fell doicn and worshiped God, that sat on the throne, 
saying, Amen ! Hallelujah ! And a voice came out of the throne 
saying, Praise our God all ye his servants ; and ye that fear him, 
both small and great. And I heard, as it were, a great multitude, 
and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty 
thunders, saying, Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent 

REIGNETH."* 

And now, if this be the character of God — if he be indeed one 
who hates iniquity, and punishes impenitent sinners, we need not 
wonder that those who spake his word should utter imprecations, 
either in the Old Testament or in the New; but rather bless the 
mercy which warns before justice strikes, and seeks by the terrors 

* Revelation, chs. xix, xx, xxi. 

187 



28 MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 

of the Lord to persuade men from perdition. The curses of the 
Bible are all denounced against the enemies of God, with the design 
of showing sinners their danger, and leading them to repentance. 

The conclusion then of our investigation is, that the Old Testa- 
ment is the word of God no less than the New — that it is in no re- 
spect contrary to it — that all its parts — the Law and the Prophets, 
and the Psalms — are of Divine authority — that all its contents were 
written by Divine direction, whether prophecy or history, ceremony 
or morality, promise or threatening, curses or blessings. It is of 
the Old Testament principally that the Holy Ghost declares " All 
Scripture is given by inspiration of God; and is profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for instruction, and correction in righteous- 
ness; that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished 
unto all good works."* 



* 2 Timothy, iii : 16. 



No. 31. 

INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

A little or superficial knowledge of philosophy may incline a man's 
mind to Atheism ; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds 
about to religion. Bacon. 

When skeptics, who are determined not to believe in the Bible, 
find the historical evidences of its genuineness, authority, and in- 
spiration, impregnable against the assaults of criticism, they turn 
their attention to some other mode of attack, and of late years have 
selected their weapons from the physical sciences. The argument 
thus raised is, that the Bible cannot be the word of God, because it 
asserts facts contrary to the teachings of science. Of this warfare 
Voltaire may be considered the leader, in his celebrated attack on 
the chemical processes recorded in scripture ; in which he exposed 
himself to the ridicule of all the chemists and metallurgists in 
Europe, by denying the possibility of dissolving the golden calf: 
the solution of gold being actually found in every gilder's shop in 
Paris, and known even to coiners and forgers for hundreds of years 
before he made this notable discovery. The result was ominous. \ 

The whole circle of the sciences has been ransacked for such 
arguments, and especially has every new discovery been hailed by 
skeptics as an ally to their cause, until further acquaintance has 
demonstrated that the stranger, too, was in alliance with religion. 
Thus, when Geology began to upheave his Titanic form, he was 
eagerly greeted as a being undoubtedly not of celestial, but rather 
of subterranean, or even infernal origin, and so willing to employ 
his gigantic powers in the assault upon heaven, and able to over- 
whelm the Bible and the Church under the ruins of former worlds. 
But now that skeptics have discovered the proofs he gives of the 
presence of the Almighty on this world of ours, they are getting 
shy of his acquaintance, and are cultivating the society of some 
new and juvenile visitors from the chambers of Animal Magnetism 
and Biology. The same scene will doubtless be acted over again ; 
and these infantile strangers, when able to give distinct utterance 
to the facts of their developed consciousness, will bear testimony to 
the truth of God. 

Such objections to the Bible are very rarely brought forward by 

189 



2 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

truly scientific men. It is a phenomenon, like the advent of a great 
comet, to find a man profoundly versed in any science, attack the 
Bible. Your third or fourth rate men of learning attain distinction 
in this field. An anti-Bible writer or lecturer always has been 
promoted to that high eminence from the school-room, or the edito- 
rial sanctum of an unsuccessful newspaper ; or his patients have 
not sufficiently appreciated his physic, or he has failed in getting a 
patent-right for his wonderful perpetual motion, or possibly he has 
enlarged his practical knowledge of science in the laboratory of 
some Western College, and had his head turned by being asked to 
hear the mathematical recitations during the sickness of some pro- 
fessor. But to hear of men like Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, Newton, 
and Leibnitz, or of Lyell, Mantell, Herschell, Agassiz, Hitchcock, 
Balbo, Nichol, or Rosse, heading an attack upon Christianity, 
would be an unprecedented phenomenon. Such men are profound- 
ly impressed with the thorough agreement between the facts of 
nature rightly observed, and the declarations of the Bible rightly 
interpreted. 

Nevertheless, the other class being both the most numerous and 
the most noisy, make up by perseverance for their deficiency of 
information, and counterbalance their ignorance by their assur- 
ance. Such writers, assuming that they have outstripped all the 
philosophers of former days, will tell you how foolishly David and 
Kepler, and Bacon and Newton, and Herschell dreamed of the 
heavens declaring the glory of the Lord, and the firmament showing 
his handy work ; " while at the present time, and for minds properly 
familiarized with true astronomical philosophy, the heavens display 
no other powers than those of natural laws, and no other glory 
than that of Hipparchus, of Kepler, of Newton, and of all who 
have helped to discover them." Theology belongs only to the 
infancy of the human intellect ; metaphysical philosophy is the 
amusement of youth; but the full grown man has learned to relin- 
quish both religion and reason, and comes to the "positive state 
of science in which the human mind, acknowledging the impossi- 
bility of obtaining absolute knowledge, abandons the search after 
the origin and destination of the universe, and the knowledge of 
the secret causes of phenomena." The crown of modern science 
is ultimately to be placed upon the brow of Atheism ; but long 
before that eagerly-desired achievement, the old Bible theology is 
to be buried beyond the possibility of a resurrection, under nioun- 
190 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 3 

tains of natural laws, and monuments of scientific discovery. 
These assertions, confidently made, and perseveringly reiterated in 
the ears of ungodly men ignorant of the facts, of impetuous youths 
eager to throw off the restraints of religion, of christians weak in 
the faith, and even poured into the unsuspecting mind of child- 
hood, produce the most painful, and often fatal results ; and it 
becomes the imperative duty of the bishops of the Church of Christ 
not to allow them to pass unchallenged, but to convince the gain- 
Bayers, and stop the mouths of these unruly and vain talkers ; or, if 
that be not possible, to make their folly manifest to all men. The 
weapons for such a service are well tried and abundant, and the 
difficulty lies only in making a proper selection. 

At first view, the extinction of religion by science seems very 
unlikely. It is as unlikely that any thing that an infidel says 
about religion should be true, as that a blind man should describe 
the sun correctly. Did you ever know one who could quote three 
verses of scripture correctly, or even read a chapter accurately and 
attentively, with the book before him ? I shall show you presently 
that learned infidels make the grossest blunders respecting the 
plainest scripture records of scientific facts. It is very un- 
likely that infidels, who lay no claim to prophetic inspiration, 
should make any predictions about religion more reliable than 
those they have been telling so abundantly for two hundred years 
past, respecting the immediate overthrow of Christianity and the 
Bible ; which, nevertheless, has been going on conquering new 
kingdoms every year, its missionaries outstripping scientific ardor 
in exploring the mysteries of African Geography, honorably receiv- 
ing the prizes which the infidel Volney instituted for philological 
proficiency, and printing Bibles from Voltaire's printing-press. 
And it is very unlikely that these physical sciences, so long wor- 
shipers in the temple of God, should now become impious : as 
unlikely as that John Angel James, or D'Aubigne, or Buchanan, 
or Hodge, or Barnes should now, in their old days, renounce the 
Bible, and blaspheme God. What ! Astronomy, and Geology, and 
Zoology, and Botany, and Ethnography, that were suckled at the 
breast of the Bible, raise their hands against the mother that 
bore them ! Incredible ! These young sciences made an early 
profession of religion; taught sabbath- school in the days of Job, 
Zophar, and Elihu ; wrote sacred poetry, and were licensed to 
preach, in the days of Solomon ; poured forth prophetic raptures in 

191 



4 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah ; wrote volumes 
on the politics of Christianity in Babylon, and painted glorious 
visions of the victories of the Lamb of God, and dazzling views of 
the landscapes of paradise restored in Patmos ; employed the gigan- 
tic intellect of Newton, the elegant pen of Paley, the eloquence of 
Chalmers, Herschell's heaven-piercing eye, and Miller's muscular 
arm, to guard the outer courts of the sanctuary, while they sung 
sublime anthems to the music of David's harp within ; and have 
they now, after such a life of devotion, relinquished all these sub- 
limities and beatitudes, taken lodgings in the stye, and renounced 
their faith in God, and hope of heaven, for the infidel maxim, " Let 
us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die " ? God forbid ! 

No rational man will be easily convinced of the truth of such an 
unlikely accusation. Least of all will he believe it, on the say-so 
of men of whom he knows little, save that they are not much 
acquainted with either religion or the sciences. I, for one, mean 
to enquire for the truth from reliable informants. The object of 
this and the following Tracts is to interrogate these physical sci- 
ences themselves whether they are really becoming skeptical of the 
being of the Living God, and hostile to Holy Scripture ; or whether 
they have lately given any utterances which would give occasion to 
such a suspicion. I do not propose, of course, to attempt giving an 
outline of Astronomy, Geology, Zoology, Ethnography, &c, in the 
limits of this or subsequent Tracts ; but confining our attention to 
Astronomy, I shall assume that my readers are possessed of such a 
knowledge of the principles of that science as our common schools 
afford every intelligent youth — or, should their early education be 
defective in this respect, I entreat them to do themselves the justice, 
and enjoy the high gratification, of perusing some of the lucid and 
interesting popular works on the subject to be found in every book- 
store, or in our public libraries* — and proceed to select from the 

* KendaWs Uranograpliy and Atlas of the Heavens is a cheap and useful manual. Sir 
John Herschell's Outlines of Astronomy is a larger and more scientific work. Somer- 
ville's Connection of the Physical Sciences displays the wide range of modern discovery 
in Astronomy, and its connected sciences. The attractive works of the Christian Phi- 
losopher, Thos. Dick, L.L. D., The Siderial Heavens, The Solar System, and Celestial 
Scenery, will ever be as popular as they are perspicuous and original. The condensed, 
lucid, frigid Cosmos of the encyclopediac Humboldt, will interest those who understand 
the technology of the science. The discoveries of Lord Bosse's magnificent telescopes 
are described with a simple, majestic eloquence not unworthy of the grandeur of the 
theme, by J. P. Nicholl, L.L. D., in Contemplations on the Solar System, and the 

192 



INFfDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 5 

vast mass of modern discoveries those which have a bearing upon 
the question, Is the progress of astronomical discovert/ hostile, or 
favorable, to natural and revealed religion f 

The progress of astronomical science has swept away the alleged 
facts on which all systems of Atheism have been based. 

1. It has refuted the fundamental dogma of Atheism, that the 
universe is infinite, and therefore self existent. The assertion is 
confidently made by Atheists and Pantheists, that the universe has 
no boundaries ; not merely none which we can see, but that it actu- 
ally fills all immensity: suns succeeding suns, and firmament clus- 
tering beyond firmament, throughout infinite space. 

It is indispensable for the Atheist not only to assert, but to 
prove this to be the fact, if he would convince himself, or any 
other person, that the universe had no Creator, but exists by the 
necessity of its own nature ; for that which exists by the necessity 
of its own nature, must exist in all time, and in every place. No 
reason can be given why self-existent suns, planets, and moons, 
should exist in any one portion of space, and not exist in any other 
similar portion of space. For if such a reason could be given, that 
reason must show a cause for their existence in the one place, and 
their non-existence in another ; and that cause must have existed 
before the universe, and must have been a cause sufficient to pro- 
duce the effect. This sufficient cause includes ability to produce, 
wisdom to arrange, and force to put in motion all the powers of 
the universe : qualities which reside only in an intelligent being. 
This is the cause which the Bible asserts when it says, " In the 
beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and which 
Atheists deny when they assert that " the universe is eternal and 
infinite." 

Now, this fundamental article of the creed of infidels is utterly 
incapable of proof. If the fact were really so, they never could 
prove it. They acknowledge no revelation from an infinite under- 
standing, but found their belief on the knowledge of a number of 
finite and ignorant beings. Before tfaey are competent to pro- 
nounce upon the extent of the universe, they must explore it thor- 
oughly ; which, when they shall have done, they will have demon- 
strated that it has boundaries, seeing they have discovered them; 



Architecture of the Heavens. The Annual of Scientific Discovery, as its name imports, 
records the latest discoveries. 

13 193 



6 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

but, if they have not thoroughly explored the universe, they can 
not say that it is infinite, because they do not know. The very 
utmost, then, which could possibly be asserted on the matter 
would be, not that the universe has no boundaries, but that man 
has never reached them. As in the case of ocean soundings, if we 
cannot find bottom, we are not therefore to conclude that there is 
none, but that our line is not long enough, or our lead not heavy 
enough to reach it. 

For, it were a logical absurdity to say, that the whole is greater 
than the sum of its parts — that any number of finite parts could 
compose an infinite universe. Each sun or planet is a finite object, 
and any possible number of them can be counted in a sufficient 
time. It is impossible that any number can be infinite ; for we are 
not using the word infinite here in the loose sense in which it is 
used by mathematicians, when they speak of an infinite series ; 
that is, a series which, though it has no end, has a beginning ; but 
in the strict sense of something having neither beginning nor end. 
A beginning of the universe, either in space or time, is the very 
thing the Atheist denies. 

While reason thus enables us to show this dogma of the infinity 
of the universe to be theoretically improbable, and logically irra- 
tional, science has lately taken a more decisive step, and demon- 
strated it to be actually false. The universe has boundaries, and 
we have seen them. The proof is simple, and easily demonstrable, 
since the discovery that nebulas are clusters of stars. That broad 
band of luminous cloud which stretches across the heaven, called 
the Milky Way, consists of millions of stars, so small and distant 
that we cannot see the individual stars, and so numerous that we 
cannot help seeing the light of the mass : just as you see the outline 
of the forest at a distance, but are unable to distinguish the indi- 
vidual trees. Besides this mass of stars to which our solar system 
belongs, there are thousands of smaller similar clouds in various 
parts of the heavens, which have successively been shown to consist 
of multitudes of stars. But all around these star-clouds the clear 
blue sky is discovered by the naked eye. 

Now, it is easy to perceive, that if all the regions of infinite space 
were filled either with self-luminous suns, or planets capable of 
reflecting light, or comets of gaseous consistency, at such distances 
as the Milky Way, or any other star-cloud demonstrates to be safe 
and practicable, we should see no blue sky at all ; but the whole 
194 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 7 

vault of heaven would present that whitish light resulting from the 
mingling of the rays of multitudes of stars, planets, and comets, 
which the Milky Way does actually exhibit. No matter how small 
or how distant these stars, if they were only infinitely numerous, it 
is impossible that there could be any point in the heavens unillu- 
minated by their rays, even although the stars themselves were 
invisible to our eyes, or even to our telescopes. The whole heaven 
would be one vast Milky Way. 

Though the telescope discovers multitudes of stars where the 
naked eye sees none, yet they are, in far the greater number of 
instances, " seen projected on a perfectly dark heaven, without any 
appearance of intermixed nebulosity."* And even through the 
Milky Way, and the other nebulae, the telescope penetrates, through 
" intervals absolutely dark, and completely void of any star, of the 
smallest telescopic magnitude." f It may assist us to understand 
the full import of this declaration, to remember that Lord Rosse's 
large telescope clearty defines any object on the moon's surface as 
large as the Custom House. Its power of penetrating space sur- 
passes our power of imagination, but is represented by saying, 
that light, which flashes from San Francisco to London quicker 
than you can close your eye and open it again, requires millions of 
years to travel to our earth from the most distant star-cloud discov- 
erable by this telescope. $ If a galaxy like this of ours existed any 
where within this amazing distance, that telescope would discover 
its existence. It has, in fact, augmented the universe visible to us, 
125,000,000 times, and thus made us feel that not merely this 
world, which constitutes our earthly all, and yon glorious sun, 
which shines upon it, but all the host of heaven's suns, and plan- 
ets, and moons, and firmaments, which our unaided eyes behold, 
are but as a handful of the sand of the ocean shore, compared with 
the immensity of the universe. But ever, and along with this, it 
has shown us the ocean as well as the shore, and revealed bound- 
less regions of darkness and solitude stretching around and far 
away beyond these islands of existence. The telescope, then, en- 
larges and confirms our views of the extent of the unoccupied por- 
tions of space, 
v If there were only one dark point of the heavens no larger than 



* Herschell's Outlines, ch. xvii., § 887. f Cosmos, Hi. 197. 

% Architecture of the Heavens, 9th ed., p. 180. 

195 



8 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

the apparent magnitude of the smallest star, this one unoccupied 
space would sufficiently disprove the infinity of the universe, inas- 
much as there would be a portion of space of boundless length, and 
of a diameter not less than the diameter of the earth's orbit, say 
190,000,000 miles, in which stars might exist, as they do in its 
borders, but yet do not. But the argument becomes utterly over- 
whelming, when the attempt is made to calculate the proportion of 
space occupied by the stars to that left unoccupied. Whether we 
take Herschell's computation, that the nebulae cover one 270th part 
of the superficies of the visible heaven,* or Struve's supposition of 
the existence of a star subtending no measurable angle, in every 
part of the visible sky as large as the surface of the moon, the 
vast disproportion of the universe to the space in which it is placed, 
forces itself upon our notice. For, upon the largest of these com- 
putations, the proportion of existence to empty space is mathemat- 
ically proved to be not greater than as the cube of 1 to the cube of 
269 ; that is to say, there is room for 19,395,109 such universes as 
this of ours in that small part of infinite space open to the view of 
HerschelFs telescopes. But when we come to consider the vastness 
of these regions of darkness, over which no light has traveled for 
twenty millions of years, and remember also that astronomers have 
looked clear through the nebulae, and find that they bear no more 
cubical proportion to the' infinite darkness behind them than the 
sparks of a chimney do to the extent of the sky against which they 
seem projected, so far from imagining the universe to be infinite, 
we stand confounded at its relative insignificance, and are convinced 
that it bears no more proportion to infinite space than a fishing- 
boat does to the Atlantic Ocean. 

There is no possible evasion of this great fact, by any contradic- 
tory hypothesis. It cannot be objected "that stars may exist at 
infinite distances, whose light has not yet reached the limits of our 
universe." If they do, they did not exist from eternity, for there 
is no possible distance over which light could not have traveled, 
during eternal duration. But their eternal existence is the very 
thing which the Atheist is concerned to prove. Grant that infinite 
space is filled with worlds which had a beginning, and their neces- 
sary existence instantly falls, and we are compelled to seek for a 
cause of their beginning of existence : that is to say, a Creator. 

* Cosmos, iv. 292. 

196 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 9 

Nor will it answer the purpose to say, "that for any thing we 
know to the contrary, these dark regions may be filled with dark 
stars." 

If the fact were so, it is equally fatal to the dogma of self-exis- 
tence. Some stars shine : others are dark. Why so ? Wherefore 
this difference ? Variety is an effect, and demands a prior cause. 
Were there only two stars in the sky, or two substances on the 
earth, and those unlike in any particular, that plurality and that 
variety would prove that they could not be infinite or self-existent, 
but dependent upon some cause for their existence, and their 
various forms. 

But we do know many things contrary to the notion that the 
dark regions of infinite space may be full of dark stars. Light is 
not the only indication of the presence of a star. The attraction 
of gravity, which is wholly independent of light, is a proof quite as 
certain and satisfactory to the astronomer. The presence of stars 
and planets too faint to be discovered by the naked eye, and of 
one, the planet Neptune,* as far distant from the planet disturbed 
by its attraction as the earth is from the sun, was ascertained, and 
its place pointed out to a degree, by Adams and Leverrier, before 
it was seen. If the dark interplanetary spaces, then, were full of 
dark attracting bodies, the perturbations of the other planets would 
discover their existence. So the presence of some invisible stars at 
much greater distances from their visible associates has been dis- 
covered by Bessel,f and it is quite possible that a dark firmament 
may yet be discovered, containing as great a number of dark stars 
as we now behold of luminaries : another group of islets in the 
ocean of infinite space. But the very facts which will prove their 
existence will disprove their infinity ; for we can know their pres- 
ence only by their perturbation of the proper motions of the visible 
stars ; but if infinite space were full of dark bodies, the visible stars 
would have no room to move at all. It is easily demonstrable, that 
if infinite space were filled with dark stars, the equilibrium and 
coherence of our galaxy, and of all other clusters of stars, would be 
destroyed. The existence of nebulae and clusters, and the revolu- 
tions of the binary stars, are conclusive proof that the dark parts 
of infinite space are not full of dark attracting bodies. 

* Nicholl's Contemplations on the Solar System, xxx. 
t Cosmos, iii. 253. 

197 



10 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

Nor can the Atheist here raise his usual argument from unknown 
facts, and say that, "far beyond the range of our most powerful 
telescopes, a boundless expanse of firmaments may exist." It con- 
cerns not our present argument whether such exist or not. "What- 
soever discoveries may be made to eternity, of firmaments, ten 
thousand times ten thousand times larger than we now behold, 
they can never bear the smallest proportion to the infinite space in 
which they exist. Beyond these islets will extend gulfs and oceans 
immeasurable. Our argument, however, has no concern with the 
unknown possible, but with the actual fact — visible to the naked 
eye, and confirmed by the telescope — that there is a portion of 
space in which millions of universes such as this might exist with 
safety, yet they do not. Worlds, therefore, do not exist by the 
necessity of their own nature, wherever there is room for them, 
but must have had some pre-existent, external, and supernatural 
cause of their existence in this place and not in other places. 
This implies choice — will — God. 

The physical refutation of the self-existence of the universe is 
completed by the discovery, that all the orbs of heaven, as well as 
the earth, are in motion, and that an orderly and regulated motion.* 
The fact need not be illustrated, for it is not denied. The conse- 
quence is inevitable. That which is self-existent must be unchange- 
able : for change is an effect, and demands a cause ; and the cause 
must exist before the effect, and produce it. Whatsoever is change- 
able, then, is a product of a prior cause, and so not self-existent. 
But the universe is changeable, for it is in motion, which is a 
change of place ; therefore, the universe is not self-existent, but the 
product of a prior cause. 

No mechanical law is a sufficient cause for this motion. To 
allege that a power of orderly, regulated motion — and there is no 
other sort of motion in heaven or earth — is an inherent property 
of matter, is simply to insult our common sense, and overturn the 
foundation of all reason. For we have no knowledge of matter, and 
can have none, more certain than we have of the constitution of 
our own minds, which requires us to trace up every change among 
material objects to the energy and will of a person capable of plan- 
ning and effecting the change. To refer us to the law of gravity 
is not to give us a cause for the motions of the heavenly bodies, but 



* Herschell's Outlines, ch. xvi. 
198 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 11 

only a name; for law is only a rule of action. "We demand a law- 
giver — an agent — & force, capable of producing effects. When the 
law of projectiles makes a cannon ball, and projects it, we will 
believe that the law of gravity made the worlds, and moves them. 

"Descending within the mind's interior chambers, I find no con- 
viction so sure of the existence of an external world, as is my belief 
in the reality of power — of something that sustains succession, and 
causes order. Again, then, whence this idea, and what is it? 
What this attribute with which I endow material laws, and raise 
them into forces ? Now, in my apprehension, the strictest scrutiny 
cannot obtain for these inquiries any reply save one : we primarily 
connect the idea of power with no change or movement, except an 
act or determination of the Free Will ; but from such acts, that 
idea is inseparable. If, therefore, in order to explain the progress 
of material things, we require the agency of efficient causes, is not 
this a direct and solemn recognition — through all form and tran- 
siency — of the necessity of an ever present creative power : a power 
requisite and necessary to uphold — to renew the universe every 
moment — or, rather, to prolong creation by the persistence of the 
creative act ? And, in very truth, startling though it be, such is 
the only and ultimate scientific idea of the Divine Omnipresence. 
Law is not even the Almighty's minister ; the order of the material 
world, however close and firm, is not merely the Almighty's ordi- 
nance. The forces, if so we name them, which express that order, 
are not powers which he has evolved from the silences, and to 
whose guardianship he has committed all things, so that He him- 
self might repose. No ! above, below, around, there is God : there 
his universal presence, speaking to finite creatures, in finite forms, 
a language which only the living heart can understand. In the 
rain and the sunshine ; in the soft zephyrs ; in the cloud, the 
torrent, and the thunder ; in the bursting blossom, and the fading 
branch; in the revolving season, and the rolling star: there is the 
Infinite Essence, and the mystic development of His Will." * 

2. Scientific Astronomy inexorably demolishes the Atheistic 
scheme for the arrangement of the Solar System by accident, com- 
monly known as Buffon's cosmogony. 

" Buffon supposes that the force of a comet falling obliquely on 
the sun has projected to a distance a torrent of the matter of which 



* Nicholl's Architecture of the Heavens, 9th ed., 272. 

199 



12 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS* 

it is composed, as a stone thrown into a basin causes the water 
which it contains to splash out. This torrent of matter, in a state 
of fusion, has broken into several parts, which have been arrested 
at different distances from the sun, according to their density, or 
the impetus they received. They then united in spheres, by the 
effect of motion of rotation, and condensing by cold, have become 
opaque and solid planets and satellites.*" 

This formation of worlds by accident, it is true, gave no reason 
for the form of their orbits, for their rotation on their axes, in one 
direction, and that, too, the direction of their motion, nor for sev- 
eral other matters, of which infidels make little account, but about 
which plain men like to ask, namely: Where did the sun come 
from ? What melted it down into a fluid state, fit to be splashed 
about? Where did the comet come from? And who threw it 
with so correct an aim through infinite space as exactly to hit the 
sun in an oblique direction. Creation, it seems, was nearly missed, 
after all. This chaotic theory never gained much respect from 
men of science, though its simplicity speedily opened its way 
among the vulgar, and it has ever been a favorite with the most 
ignorant class of infidels, numbering thousands of warm advocates, 
even at the present day. 

It was thought to be very much corroborated by the discovery of 
the asteroids, and their supposed formation by the explosion of a 
larger body. There is a certain proportion observed in the dis- 
tances of the orbits of the planets from each other — a breadth of 
guage, as it were, on the celestial railroad. But there was the 
breadth of a track between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter on which 
no train ran, and this vacancy excited the curiosity of astronomers. 
In the first seven years of this century, three very small planets 
were discovered, running near this track ; and Dr. Olbers, the dis- 
coverer of Pallas, finding that they were nearly in the same track, 
and sometimes crossed each other, and that they were diminutively 
small — bearing about the same proportion to a regular x planet 
which a hand-car does to a freight train — imagined that they were 
formed by the explosion of a large planet : that the boiler of the 
large locomotive had burst, the fragments had all lighted upon the 
track again, in the shape of hand-cars, and the hand-cars had mag- 
nanimously resolved to keep running, and do the business of the 

* Pontecoulant in System of the World, p. 70. 

200 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 13 

line ; and that, as there must have been material enough in the 
original planet to make some thousands of them, more would be 
discovered by watching two depots, at the crossings of the tracks, 
in the constellations Virgo and the Whale, where they must all 
pass. In fact, he did himself find another, very near one of these 
nodes ; and quite lately, thirty-eight others have been found ; and 
astronomers now expect to hear of one or two more every year. At 
first sight, his theory seemed strengthened by every new discovery. 
It is true, reflecting men could not help wondering at such a mar- 
vellously regular explosion as would produce beautiful little orderly 
planets, going so regularly and curiously too, and all by accident. 
They never heard of the blowing up of a palace producing cottages, 
or the explosion of a steamboat throwing off the hurricane deck in 
the shape of whaleboats, or the bursting of a locomotive producing 
model engines, or even hand-cars. However, as the theory removed 
God out of sight it was generally accepted, and freely used by in- 
fidels, to show that the world had no need of a creator. 

But astronomers saw, that as each new asteroid had a track of 
its own, and ran to a different terminus, and the roads in which 
they ran were of different guages and grades — one little asteroid, 
Pallas, running up and down a track inclined 35 degrees, just as 
speedily as the others — every new discovery increased the difficulty 
of accounting for their origin by explosion. But the discovery of 
the planet Hygeia, at a vast distance from the others, utterly over- 
turned the explosion theory. Loomis says : 

" The difficulties in the way of our regarding these small planets 
as fragments of a single body, were well nigh insuperable before 
the discovery of Hygeia. This last discovery has probably given 
the death blow to the theory of Olbers. The orbit of Hygeia com- 
pletely encloses the orbits of several of the asteroids, its perihilion 
distance — that is, its least distance from the sun— exceeding the 
aphelion — or greatest distance — of Flora by twenty-Jive millions of 
miles. No change of position of the orbits could, therefore, bring 
these orbits to a coincidence*' " 

The matter has been finally settled by the greatest of modern 
mathematicians, Leverrier, who has subjected the eccentricities, 
distances, and inclinations of the orbits of the asteroids to a mathe- 
matical investigation, the result of which is as follows: 






* Progress of Astronomy, 70. 

201 



14 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

" In the present state of things, these eccentricities and these 
inclinations are totally incompatible with Olber's hypothesis, which 
supposed that the small planets — some of which were discovered 
even in his day — were produced from the wreck of a larger star, 
which had exploded. The forces necessary to launch the fragments 
of a given body in such different routes (whose existence we should 
be obliged to suppose), would be of such an improbable intensity, 
that the most limited mathematical knowledge could not but see 
its absurdity/' He concludes the memoir by advancing four propo- 
sitions, " which forever annihilate Olber's hypothesis." * 

The Buffonian theory, thus deprived of the only apparently anal- 
ogous fact by which it was supported, was restored to its birth- 
place, in the regions of foggy hypothesis. But science, indignant 
that such nonsense should ever have dared to assume her livery, 
will not allow it to linger even among the shades. Those irregular 
world-breaking comets, which, while their density was unknown, 
formed such convenient sledge-hammers for the Atheist's world- 
factory, have been literally dissipated into smoke by powerful tele- 
scopes. In fact, a respectable wreath of smoke is quite a substan- 
tial being compared with the densest of the comets. 

" The smallest comets, such as are visible only in telescopes, or 
with difficulty by the naked eye, and which are by far the most 
numerous, offer very frequently no appearance of a tail, and appear 
only as round or somewhat oval vaporous masses, more dense 
towards the center, where, however, they appear to have no distinct 
nucleus, or any thing which seems entitled to be considered a solid 
body. Stars of the smallest magnitude remain distinctly visible, 
though covered by what appears to be the densest portion of their 
surface ; although the same stars would be completely obliterated 
by a moderate fog extending only a few yards from the surface of 
the earth. And since it is an observed fact, that even those larger 
comets, which have presented the appearance of a nucleus, have 
yet exhibited no phases, though we cannot doubt that they shine 
by the reflected solar light, it follows that even these can only be 
regarded as great masses of thin vapor, susceptible of being pene- 
trated through their whole substance by the sunbeams, and reflect- 
ing them alike from their interior parts and from their surfaces. 



* Memoir to the French Academy, by M. Leverrier; from The Annual of Scientific 
Discovery, for 1855, p. 376. 

202 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 15 

Nor will any one regard this explanation as forced, or feel disposed 
to resort to a phosphorescent quality in the comet itself, to account 
for the phenomena in question, when we consider (what will here- 
after be shown) the enormous magnitude of the space thus illumi- 
nated, and the extremely small mass which there is ground to 
attribute to these bodies. It will then be evident that the most 
unsubstantial clouds which float in the highest regions of our 
atmosphere, and seem at sunset to be drenched in light, and to 
glow throughout their whole depth, as if in actual ignition, without 
any shadow or dark side, must be looked upon as dense and massy 
bodies, compared with the filmy and all but spiritual texture of a 
comet." * 

3. The progress of Astronomical discovery has utterly refuted the 
notion of creation by natural law, known as the Development Theory, 
or the Nebular Hypothesis. 

Scientific infidels knew that there was too much order and regu- 
larity in the motions of the planets to allow any rational mind to 
ascribe these motions to accident, according to Buffon's notion. 
They saw that these movements must be regulated by law. La 
Place, an eminent mathematician, saw that there are at least five 
great regularities pervading the system, for which Buffon's theory 
gave no reason : 

1. The planets all move in elliptical orbits, nearly circular. They 
might, on the contrary, have been as elongated as those of comets. 

2. They revolve in orbits nearly in the plane of the sun's equa- 
tor. They might have revolved in orbits inclined to it at any angle, 
or even in the plane of his poles. 

3. They revolve around the sun all in the same direction, which 
is the direction of his rotation on his axis. 

4. They rotate on their axes, also, so far as known, in the same 
direction. 

5. The satellites (with the exception of those of Uranus) revolve 
around their primary planets, and also rotate on their axes, in the 
same normal direction. 

It was evident, even to the believers in chance, that so many 
regularities were not produced by accident. La Place, found, by 
computing the chances by the formula of probabilities, that the 
chances were two millions to one against these regularities happen- 



* Herschell's Outlines of Astronomy, p. 558, ed. of 1853. 

203 



16 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

ing by chance, and four millions to one in favor of these motions 
having a common origin. The grand phenomenon being a motion 
of rotation in the Avhole system, of which the rotation Of the sun is 
the central part, he thought if he could account for this, he could 
explain all the rest. 

He set out by supposing that the sun and planets originally ex- 
isted as a vast cloud of gaseous matter, intensely heated — a vast 
fire mist — placed in a region of space much cooler, and that this 
cloud, by gradual cooling, and the pressure of its parts, settled 
down into solid forms. It was supposed that some portions of this 
cloud would begin to cool sooner than others, and so become solid 
sooner, and that the hot gas, rushing to the solid part, would form 
a vortex, which would set the cloud in motion around its center. 
As the speed of its rotation would increase, and the outside con- 
dense and grow solid before the inside, the cloud would whirl off 
the rings of solid matter, which would keep revolving in the same 
orbits in which they were cast off, and would revolve faster and 
faster as they grew cooler and more solid, till they broke up, by 
the force of their velocity, into smaller pieces ; which fragments, 
in their turn, repeated the process, until the present number of 
planets and their satellites was produced. 

This theory differs from Buffon's much as' a low pressure engine, 
deriving most of its power from the condenser, differs from one 
of high pressure. La Place does not explode the boiler to make 
his planets, but merely runs his train so fast as to break an axle 
every now and then, when the wheel runs off with the velocity it 
had got, and keeps its track as well as if it had an engineer to 
guide it, grows into a little locomotive by dint of running, and 
after a while breaks an axle too, — breaking is a hereditary failing 
of these suns and planets that had no God to make them — and 
the wheels thus thrown off supply it with moons and rings, like 
Saturn's. The illustration is not nearly so absurd as the theory, 
inasmuch as a locomotive is an incomparably less complicated con- 
trivance than a planet. However, the nonsense was cradled in the 
halls of philosophy in the manner following. 

Herscbell had discovered numbers of nebulae, or luminous clouds, 
in the distant heavens, shining with a distinct light, but which, 
with the highest magnifying power he could apply, presented no 
trace of stars. Some nebulae, it is true, his largest telescope re- 
solved, like our own Milky Way, into beds of distinct stars ; but 
204 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 17 

there were others — for instance, one in the belt of Orion — visible to 
the naked eye as a cloud, but which his forty feet telescope only 
displayed as a larger cloud, without any shape of stars. Now, 
reasoning upon the matter, he found that if these nebulae were 
composed of stars as large as those distinctly visible, they must be 
immensely distant to be indistinguishable by his telescope, and 
exceedingly numerous and close together to give a cloud of light 
visible to the naked eye. In fact, the suns of those firmaments 
must be so close to each other as to present a blaze of glory, and 
complexities of revolution inconceivable to the dwellers on earth. 
But as this daring idea seemed incredible, even to his giant mind, 
he thought the appearance of these nebulae might be more ration- 
ally accounted for by supposing that they were not stars at all, but 
simply clouds of gaseous matter, like the matter of comets, from 
which he supposed that stars were formed by a long process of 
condensation and solidification. He thought this theory was fa- 
vored by the fact, that nebulas are generally seen in those portions 
of the heavens that are not thickly strewn with stars ; and also by 
the various forms of these clouds. Some were merely loose clouds, 
without any definite form ; others seemed gathering towards the 
center. In some, of a roundish, or oval form, the central mass 
seemed well defined. In a few, the process seemed nearly com- 
plete, a bright star shining in the midst of a faint nebulous halo. 
Here, then, it was said, we see the whole progress of the growth 
of stars: their development from the gaseous nebulous fluid into 
solid, brilliant suns. La Place accepted HerschelPs discoveries as 
conclusive proof of the truth of his theory, and it was generally 
accepted by the scientific world. Oddly enough, nobody seems to 
have noticed that those appearances of condensation toward the 
centre, which seemed to Herschell so strongly in favor of his theory 
of the nebulous fluid, were diametrically opposed to La Place's 
requirements of condensation at the circumference ; and these two 
contradictory notions were supposed to support each other, and to 
furnish a solid basis for the Development Hypothesis. 

This theory, as stated by Herschell, and expounded by Nicholl, 
Dick, and other Christian writers, is not necessarily Atheistical. 
On the contrary, they allege that it furnishes us with greater evi- 
dences of the power of God, and gives us higher ideas of his wis- 
dom, to suppose a system of creation by development, under natural 
law, than by a direct exercise of his will. Undoubtedly, had God 

2 205 



18 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

so pleased, he could somehow have made suns from Fire Mists, but 
not according to La Place's plan, as "we shall presently see. Or he 
could have caused firmaments to grow from seeds, as forests do, 
according to some sublime and uniform law of such celestial vege- 
tation. In such a case, we should have had the same kind of evi- 
dence of his being, power, wisdom, and goodness, in creation by 
natural law, which we now have from his providence by natural 
law, when he sends us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons ; and 
so much greater an amount of it, as the heavens are greater than 
the earth. The first creation of primeval elements demands a 
creator, and the contrivance of the law of development a contriver; 
and the force, either of gravity, chemical attraction, or any other, 
by which it operates, must proceed from an agent. The Develop- 
ment Theory, then, cannot 'exist without God. 

However, as it seems to remove him a few steps from his works, 
and as all ungodly men desire his absence, Atheists and Pantheists 
of all kinds have earnestly laid hold of it as the foundation of their 
system of the development of the universe from eternal, self-existent 
matter, without an intelligent creator. It is at this moment, with 
thousands, the substitute for the Living God. 

Like most errors, this is the product of ignorance. Herschell, 
with his large telescope, did not see well enough the objects which 
he pronounced to be clouds of nebulous fluid. Lord Rosse has 
seen them better, with his larger telescope, and these clouds are 
hosts of very small and distant stars, clearly projected against the 
dark sky.* That nebula in Orion, which was considered the test 
specimen, has been resolved, and the whole nebular hypothesis 
is dissipated. Says Sir David Brewster, " It was certainly a rash 
generalization to maintain, that nebulae differed from clusters of 
stars, because existing telescopes could not resolve them. The 
very first application of Lord Rosse's telescope to the heavens over- 
turned the hypothesis ; and with such unequivocal facts as that 
instrument has brought to light, we regard it as a most unwarrant- 
able assumption to suppose, that there are in the heavenly spaces 
any masses of matter different from solid bodies composing plan- 
etary systems."* Nichol, formerly an eloquent supporter of the* 
nebular hypothesis, thus expresses the opinion of the scientific 
world : 

"It has been asked, Are not many such masses in the heavens 

»■ i i n 

* North British Review, No. Ill, p, 477. 
206 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 19 

still irresolvable, even by the great mirrors of Parsonstown? It 
cannot, indeed, be doubted, that nebulae defying the most energetic 
of these instruments, exist in numbers in the sky ; but, neverthe- 
less, every shred of that evidence which induced us to accept as a 
reality accumulations in the heavens of matter not stellar, is for 
ever and hopelessly destroyed. The logical state of the question is 
simply this : On the ground of a certain characteristic, Hersehell 
felt disposed to divide unresolved nebulas into two classes. He 
declined, to believe one class to be stellar, because that conclusion 
would have constrained his acceptance of what seemed opposed by 
all analogy, viz., the existence of aggregations of stars in a state of 
compression to which he had found nothing even approximately 
similar, in the course of his previous examination of the universe. 
Now, the nebula of Orion, being an eminent instance of the latter 
class, its decisive resolution broke down the force of the charac- 
teristic ; it showed that to be a fact, on the presumed improbability 
of which the entire theory depended."! "The effects of the re- 
moval of the nebular theory on our views of the general structure 
of the heavens, I have explained in another work ; and I refer to it 
here only in its bearings on La Place's celebrated theory of the 
origin of our solar system. The basis of that theory, considering it 
as a matter of observation, is obviously destroyed. JS T o such fact as 
the condensing of nebulous matter into organized stars, can now 
be seen in the heavens; so that La Place's fundamental tenet, 
that the sun originated in the gradual condensing of a gaseous 
or vaporous mass, must henceforth be regarded as a pure hy- 
pothesis. %" 

It never was any thing more than pure hypothesis — a mere notion. 
Granting to this theory all the benefit of Herschell's supposed dis- 
covery, it never could become any thing more than a theory, utterly 
incapable of proof as a fact ; for it is evident that no man could 
possibly ascertain the nature of clouds thousands of millions of 
miles distant, or know whether they were hot or cold, or whether 
they were growing hotter or colder. It was not pretended that 
anybody ever did see them scaling off into rings, and the rings 



* Cosmos, IV, p. 304. Herschell's Outlines, xvii, \ 870. Annual of Scientific Dis« 
COYery, for 1853, p. 363. 
f Nicholl's Architecture of the Heavens, 9th ed. p. 145. 
% Nicholl's Solar System, 3d ed., p. 9. 

207 



20 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS.* 

"breaking up into planets and moons, nor was it likely anybody 
ever would see such a phenomenon. Its author merely put it forth 
as a probable theory, and no scientific man ever pretended to 
demonstrate it as a discovered fact. Among scientific astronomers 
it was merely a notion. 

It was always an unsatisfactory notion. It made us no wiser 
about the origin of things. It gave no answer to the all-important 
questions, Where did the gaseous matter come from ? How did it 
get to be so hot, while the space around it was so cold ? Whence 
came the fire that heated it? Did it contain within itself all the 
principles of things now found in the resulting planets, such as 
attraction, repulsion, chemical affinity, animal and vegetable life, 
and intellect? If so, how came they there? If not, where did 
they come from ? 

Besides, it was an impracticable notion, contrary to the known 
principles of mechanics. The great requirement of the whole 
system — the power to work the engine — the motion of rotation 
upon which the whole world-turning business depends — never 
Could, by any possibility, be raised, either by La Place's, or any 
other mechanical plan. If he had the moving power, no doubt he 
could scatter off pieces of matter from his rotating sun, as drops of 
water are scattered from a rotating grindstone ; but his theory is a 
plan to make the grindstone turn itself, and is precisely of the 
same value as any of the hundreds of ingenious schemes for a per- 
petual motion, whose inventors have dreamed of creating power by 
machinery, in defiance of the fundamental law of mechanics, that 
" Action and reaction are equal." The power is to be raised by 
making his gas cool at one part of the surface faster than at an- 
other, and so make a vortex around that spot, which would set the 
whole revolving. No conceivable reason can be assigned why it 
should begin to cool at one place of the surface faster than another; 
or, indeed, why, if eternally hot, it ever should begin to cool at all. 
But, to make the required vortex for the rotation of the mass, it 
should not begin to cool at any part of the surface, but near the 
middle, where, as every engine driver who ever saw a condenser, 
and every woman who has cooled a dish of mush, knows, it could 
not begin to cool at all ; and so no motion could be produced. This 
is so well known in the machine shops and dockyards, that it is 
very rare to find an intelligent millwright or machinist acknowledge 
the theory. 
208 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 21 

Even were the rotation and the cooling process to take place, 
as is supposed, no such results would proceed from these combined 
operations as the case requires ; for, according to the theory, as the 
cooling and contracting rings revolve in the verge of a vortex of 
fluid less dense than themselves, one of these two results must take 
place : either, as is most probable, from their exceeding tenuity, 
the rings will break at once into fragments, when, instead of flying 
outwards, they will sink towards the center, and, as long as they 
are heavier than the surrounding fluid, they will stay there ; and, 
as the cooling goes on on the outside, so will the concentration of 
the heavier matter, till we have one great spheroid, with a solid 
center, liquid covering, and gaseous atmosphere. A vortex will 
never make, nor allow to exist beyond its center, planets heavier 
than the fluid of which it is composed. The other alternative, and 
the one which La Place selected, was the supposition that the cool- 
ing and contracting rings did not at first break up into pieces, but 
retained their continuity ; but, contrary to all experience and 
reason, he supposed that these cooling rings kept contracting, and 
widening out from the heated mass, at the same time. The only 
fluid planetary rings which we can examine — those of Saturn — 
have been closing in on the planet since the days of Huygens, and, 
in a dozen years or so, will be united with the body of the planet ;* 
and every boy who has seen a blacksmith hoop a cart-wheel, has 
learned the principle that a heated ring contracts as it cools, and 
in doing so presses in upon the mass around which it clings. But, 
according to this Nebular Notion, the Fire Mist keeps cooling and 
shrinking up, while the rings, of the very same heat and material, 
keep cooling faster, and widening out from it : a piece of schismat- 
ical behavior without a parallel among solids or fluids, either in 
heaven or earth, or under the earth. 

Plateau's experiment of making a globule of oil rotate and dis- 
perse into drops, by centrifugal force communicated by clockwork, 
while floating in a mixture of alcohol and water, all of the same 
density, is no illustration of the Nebular Theory, the essential con- 
dition of which is, that the cooling contracting rings be of a differ- 
ent density from the rest of the mass. Their divergence from the 
more fluid portion is supposed to arise from their growing heavier 

• Bond, of Cambridge, U. S., quoted by Sir David Brewster, in More Worlds than 
One, 35. 

14 209 



22 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

as they cool, and therefore capable of a greater centrifugal force ; 
in consequence of which, they rotate so much faster than the fluid 
from which they derived their motion, that finally they fly out of 
it. The only other instance of such a performance, which I can 
remember, is that of the Yankee's mill-wheel, which traveled three 
times as fast as the stream which drove it, while the latter was 
swift enough to make the saw-logs fly up out of the water, merely 
by the force of the current. 

This Nebular Notion was always as contrary to Astronomical 
facts j as to mechanical principles. The orbits of the comets being 
inclined at all angles to the sun's equator, are often out of the 
plane of his rotation, and so in the way of the theory. The moons 
of Uranus revolve in a direction contrary to all the other bodies, 
and fly right into the face of the theory. According to the nebular 
theory, the outer planets first cast off from the sun, ought to be 
lighter than those nearer him, as these had longer pressing near 
the middle of the mass ; and the sun himself, having been pressed 
by the weight of all the rest of the system, should be the densest 
body of the whole. And the author of the Vestiges of Creation, in 
expounding the theory, manufactures a set of facts to suit it, and 
tells his readers that the planets exhibit a progressive diminu- 
tion in density from the one nearest the sun to that which is most 
distant. Our solar system could not have lasted thirty years had 
that been the case. The Earth, Venus, and Mars, are nearly of the 
same density. Uranus is more dense than Saturn, which is nearer 
the Sun. Neptune is more dense than either. The Sun, which 
ought to be the heaviest of all, according to the theory, is only one 
fourth the density of the earth. La Place himself has demonstrated 
that these densities and arrangements are indispensable to the 
stability of the system. But they are plainly contradictory to his 
theory of its formation.* 

The palpable difference of luminosity between the Sun and the 
planets, which, as they are all made of the very same materials, 
and by the same process, according to this theory, ought to be 
equally self-luminous, is in itself a self-evident refutation of the 
Nebular Hypothesis, or of any other process of creation by mere 



* Taking water as the unit of density, Mercury is 6.71 ; Venus, 5.11 ; Earth, 5.44 ; 
Mars, 5.21; Saturn, 0.76; Uranus, 0.97; Neptune, 1.25; the Sun, 1. 37.— Cosmos, iy., 
p. 447. 

210 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 23 

mechanical law. "The same power, whether natural or supernatu- 
ral, which placed the Sun in the center of the six primary planets, 
placed Saturn in the center of the orb of his five secondary planets ; 
and Jupiter in the center of his four secondary planets ; and the 
Earth in the center of the Moon's orbit ; and, therefore, had this 
cause been a blind one, without contrivance or design, the Sun 
would have been a body of the same kind with Saturn, Jupiter, 
and the Earth ; that is, without light or heat. "Why there is one 
body in our system qualified to give light and heat to all the rest, 
I know no reason, but because the Author of the system thought it 
convenient." So says the immortal Newton.* 

The great expounder of modern science — Humboldt — is equally 
explicit in enumerating the decisive marks of choice and will in 
the construction of the solar system, and in contemptuously dis- 
missing the notion of development and creation by natural law 
from the halls of science. 

" Up to the present time, we are ignorant, as I have already re' 
marked, of any internal necessity — any mechanical law of nature — 
which (like the beautiful law which connects the square of the 
periods of revolution with the cube of the major axis) represents 
the above named elements — the absolute magnitude of the planets, 
their density, flattening at the poles, velocity of rotation, and pre- 
sence or absence of moons — of the order of succession of the indi- 
vidual planetary bodies of each group, in their dependence upon 
the distances. Although the planet which is nearest the sun is 
densest — even six or eight times denser than some of the exterior 
planets : Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune — the order of suc- 
cession in the case of Venus, the Earth, and Mars, is very irregu- 
lar. The absolute magnitudes do, generally, as Kepler has already 
observed, increase with the distances ; but this does not hold good 
when the planets are considered individually. Mars is smaller 
than the Earth ; Uranus smaller than Saturn ; Saturn smaller than 
Jupiter, and succeeds immediately to a host of planets, which, on 
account of their smallness, are almost immeasurable. It is true, 
the period of rotation generally increases with the distance from 
the Sun ; but it is in the case of Mars slower than in that of the 
Earth, and slower in Saturn than in Jupiter." f 

" Our knowledge of the primeval ages of the world's physical 



* Newton's Optica, iv. p. 438. f Cosmos, iv. 425. 

211 



24 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

history does not extend sufficiently far to allow of our depicting the 
present condition of things as one of development.* " 

4. Astronomy not only exposes the folly of past cosmogonies, but 
demonstrates the impossibility of framing any true theory of crea- 
tion, and thus refutes all future cosmogonies. 

The grand error of all cosmogonies lies in the arrogant assump- 
tion, on which every one of them must be founded, that the theorist 
is acquainted with all substances and all forces in the universe, 
and with all the modes of their operation : not only at the present 
period, and on this earth, but in all past ages, and in worlds in 
widely different and utterly unknown situations ; for, if he be igno- 
rant of any substance, or of any active force in the universe, his 
generalization is avowedly imperfect, and necessarily false. That 
unknown force must have had its influence in framing the world. 
Its omission, then, is fatal to the theory which neglects it. A 
theory of creation, for instance, which would neglect the attraction 
of gravitation, would be manifestly false. But there are other laws, 
as far reaching, whose omission must be equally fatal ; for instance, 
the power of repulsion. 

A conviction of this truth has given rise to a constant effort to 
simplify matters down to the level of our ignorance, by reducing 
all substances to one, or at most two, simple elements, and all forces 
to the form of one universal and irrational law ; but the progress of 
science utterly blasts the attempt. Instead of simplifying matters, 
the very chemical processes undertaken with that view revealed 
new substances, and every year increases our knowledge of na- 
ture's variety. No scientific man now dreams of one primeval 
element. In the same way, astronomy, which, it was boasted, 
would enable us to account for all the operations of the universe, 
by reducing all motion to one mechanical law, has revealed to us 
the existence of other forces as far reaching as the attraction of 
gravitation, and more powerful ; and substances whose nature and 
combinations are utterly unknown. But every cosmogony is just 
an attempt to simplify matters, by ignoring the existence of these 
unknown substances and mysterious forces ; a process which 
science condemns, as utterly unphilosophical and absurd. 

The Sun's heat, at its surface, is 300,000 times greater than at the 
Burface of the earth ; but a tenth of this amount, collected in the 



* Cosmos, iii. 28. 

212 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 25 

focus of a lens, dissipates gold and platina in vapor. "When the 
most vivid flames which we can produce are held up in the blaze 
of his rays, they disappear. If a cataract of icebergs, a mile high, 
and wider than the Atlantic Ocean, were launched into the Sun 
with the velocity of a cannon ball, the small portion of the Sun's 
heat expended on our earth would convert that vast mass into 
steam as fast as it entered his atmosphere, without cooling its sur- 
face in the least degree. " The great mystery, however, is to con- 
ceive how so enormous a conflagration (if such it be) can be kept 
up. Every discovery in chemical science here leaves us completely 
at a loss, or rather seems to remove farther the prospect of probable 
explanation." * Yet, the Sun is the nearest of the fixed stars, and 
by far the best known, and most nearly related to us. In fact, we 
are dependent on his influences for life and health. But if the 
theorist cannot tell his substance, or the nature and cause of the 
light and heat he sends us, how can he presume so far on the 
world's credulity as to present a theory of his formation ? 

"Astronomical problems accumulate unsolved upon our hands, 
because we cannot, as mechanicians, chemists, or physiologists, ex T 
periment on the stars. Are they built of the same material as our 
planet? Are Saturn's rings solid, or liquid? Has the moon an 
atmosphere ? Are the atmospheres of the planets like ours ? Are 
the light and heat of the sun begotten of combustion ? And what 
is the fuel which feeds these unquenchable fires ? These are ques- 
tions which we ask, and variously answer, but leave unanswered 
after all" f But, till he can answer these, and a thousand ques- 
tions like these, let no man presume to describe the formation of 
these unknown orbs. 

Comets constitute by far the greatest number of the bodies of 
our solar system. Arago says seven millions frequent it, within 
the orbit of Uranus. $ They are the largest bodies known to us, 
stretching across hundreds of millions of miles. They approach 
nearer to this earth than any other bodies, sometimes even involv- 
ing it in their tails, and generally exciting great alarm among its 
inhabitants. But the nature of the transparent luminous matter 
of which they are composed is utterly unknown. As they approach 
the Sun, they come under an influence directly the opposite of 

* Hersch ell's Outlines, vi., §400. 

t Dr. George Wilson, E. R. S. E., in Edinburg, Phil. Journal, v., 53. 

% Somereille's Connection of the Physical Sciences, 360. 

213 



26 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

attraction. The tail streams away from the sun, over a distance of 
millions of miles, and yet, the rate of the comet's motion towards the 
sun is quickened, as though it were an immense rocket, driven for- 
ward by its own explosion. 

Further, while the body of the comet travels towards the Sun, 
sometimes with a velocity nearly one-third of that of light, the tail 
Bends forth coruscations in the opposite direction, with a much 
greater velocity. The greatest velocity with which we are ac- 
quainted on earth is the velocity of light, which travels a million 
of times faster than a cannon ball, or at the rate of 195,000 miles 
per second ; but here is a substance capable of traveling twenty- 
three times faster, and here is a force propelling it, twenty-three 
times greater than any which exists on earth. Its existence was 
first discovered by the coruscations of the comet of 1807. " In less 
than one second, streamers shot forth, to two and a half degrees in 
length ; they as rapidly disappeared, and issued out again, some- 
times in proportions, and interrupted, like our northern lights. 
Afterwards, the tail varied, both in length and breadth; and in 
some of the observations, the streamers shot forth from the whole 
expanded end of the tail, sometimes here, sometimes there, in an 
instant, two and a half degrees long ; so that within a single second 
they must have shot out a distance of 4,600,000 miles.* Similar 
exhibitions of this unknown force were made by the comet of 1811, 
by Halley's comet, and several others. 

In these amazing disclosures of the unknown forces of the 
heavens, do we not hear a voice rebuking the presumption of igno- 
rant theorists, with the questions, Knowest thou the ordinances of 
heaven ? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth ? Hear 
one of the most distinguished of modern astronomers expound the 
moral bearings of such a discovery : " The intimation of a new cos- 
mical power — I mean of one so unsuspected before, but which yet 
can follow a planet through all its wanderings — throws us back 
once more into the indefinite obscure, and checks all dogmatism. 
How many influences, hitherto undiscovered by our ruder senses, 
may be ever streaming toward us, and modifying every terrestrial 
action. And yet, because we had traced one of these, we have 
deemed our astronomy complete ! Deeper far, and nearer to the 
root of things, is that world with which man's destiny is entwined."f 

» Dick's Siderial Heavens, ch. xx. f Nicholl's Solar System, 70. 

214 



INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 27 

We can have no reason, save our own self-sufficient arrogance, to 
believe that the discovery of these two forces exhausts the treasures 
of infinite wisdom. Humboldt thus well refutes the folly of such 
an imagination : " The imperfectibility of all empirical science, 
and the boundlessness of the sphere of observation, render the task 
of explaining the forces of matter by that which is variable in 
matter, an impracticable one. What has been already perceived, 
by no means exhausts that which is perceptible. If, simply refer- 
ring to the progress of science in our own times, we compare the 
imperfect physical knowledge of Robert Boyle, Gilbert, and Hales, 
with that of the present day, and remember that every few years 
are characterized by an increasing rapidity of advance, we shall be 
better able to imagine the periodical and endless changes which all 
physical sciences are destined to undergo. New substances and new 
forces will be discovered."* 

Thus, all true science, conscious of its ignorance, ever leads the 
mind to the region of faith. Its first lesson, and its last lesson, is 
humility. It tells us that every cosmogony which the children of 
theory so laboriously scratch in the sand, must be swept away by 
the rising tide of science. When we seek information on the great 
questions of our origin and destiny, and cry, Where shall wisdom 
be found, and what is the place of understanding? the high priests 
of science answer, in her name, " It is not in me ; the measure 
thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." 

We receive this honest acknowledgment as an inestimable boon. 
We are saved thereby the wearying labor of a vain and useless 
search after knowledge which lies not in her domain. We come 
down to the Bible with the profound conviction that science can 
give us no definite information of our origin, no certainty of our 
destiny, and but an imperfect acquaintance with the laws which 
govern this present world. If the Bible cannot inform us on these 
all-important questions, we must remain ignorant. Science de- 
clares she cannot teach us. The Word of God remains, not merely 
the best, but absolutely the only — the last resource of the anxious 
soul. 

The Bible gives us no theory of creation. It simply asserts the 
fact, that " In the beginning God created the heavens and the 
earth," but does not tell us how he did so. The knowledge could 



* Coemoa, iii. 27. 

215 



28 INFIDELITY AMONG THE STARS. 

be of no use to us, for he never means to employ us as his assis- 
tants in the work of creation. Nor could we understand the 
matter. The force by which he called the worlds into being, and 
upholds them in it, exists in no creature. "He stretcheth forth 
the heavens alone. He spreadeth abroad the earth by himself/' 
" He upholdeth all things by the word of his power." 

But it presents anxious, careworn, humbled souls with some- 
thing infinitely more precious than cosmogonies: even an explicit^ 
declaration of the love towards them of Him who made these worlds. 

" Thus saith the Lord, thy Redeemer, 

" And he who formed thee from the womb : 

" I am the Lord, who maketh all things ; 

" Who stretcheth forth the heavens alone, 

" And spreadeth abroad the earth, by myself." 

Yes, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, who upholds all things 
by the word of his power, became a man like you, and dwelt on 
earth, and suffered the sorrow, the shame, the pain, the death, that 
sinful man deserved ; and when he had by himself purged our 
sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. From 
that heavenly throne his voice now sounds, Reader, in your ear, 
"Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." 



No. 33. 

DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

In the last Tract we saw Astronomy demonstrating our need of 
a revelation from God. In this we shall see how it illustrates and 
confirms that revelation. Seen through the telescope, the Bible 
glows with celestial splendor. Even its cloudy mysteries are dis- 
played as clouds of light, and its long-misunderstood phrases are 
resolved, by a scientific investigation, into galaxies of brilliant 
truths, proclaiming to the philosopher that the Book which de- 
scribes them is as truly the Word of God, as the heavens which it 
describes are his handiwork. 

If, once in a century, a profound practical astronomer is found 
denying the inspiration of the Bible, he will either acknowledge, or 
discover himself, not familiar with its contents. For the most 
part, the charges brought against the Bible, of contradicting the 
facts of Astronomy, are based upon misstatements and mistakes of 
its teachings, and so do not fall within the range of the telescope, 
or the department of the observatory. The Sabbath-school teacher, 
and not the astronomer, is the proper person to correct such errors. 
A few months' instruction, in the Bible class of any well conducted 
Sabbath-school, would save some of our popular anti-Bible lecturers 
from the sin of misrepresenting the Word of God, and the shame 
of hearing children laugh at their blunders. 

A favorite field for the display of their knowledge of science, and 
ignorance of the art of reading, by our modern infidels, is the 
Bible account of creation, in the first chapter of Genesis, which is 
alleged to be utterly irreconcilable with the known facts of As- 
tronomy and Geology. Leaving the latter out of view, for the 
present, the astronomical objections may all be arranged under 
four heads. First, that the Bible account of the creation of man, 
only some six or seven thousand years ago, must be false — because 
the records of astronomical observations, taken more than seven- 
teen thousand years ago, by the Hindoos and Egyptians, are still 
in existence, and have been verified. Second, that the light of 
some of the stars, now shining upon us, and especially of some of 
the distant nebulae, must have left them millions of years ago, to 
have traveled over the vast space which separates them from us, 
and be visible on our globe now ; whereas, the Bible teaches that 

217 



2 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

the universe was created only some six or seven thousand years 
ago. Third, that the Bible represents God as creating the sky a 
solid crystal, or metallic sphere, or hemisphere (they are not agreed 
•which), to which the stars are fastened, and with which they re- 
volve round the earth ; which, every schoolboy knows to be absurd. 
Fourth, that the Bible represents God as creating the Sun and 
Moon only two days before Adam, and as creating light before the 
Sun ; which is also held to be absurd. 

1. The first of these objections — that the Hindoos and Egyptians 
made astronomical observations thousands of years before Adam, 
and that the accuracy of these observations has been verified by 
modern calculations — is simply untrue. No such observations 
were ever made. The pretended records of such have been proved, 
in the case of the Hindoo astronomy, to be forgeries, and in the 
case of the Egyptian records, blunders of the discoverers. There 
is not an authentic uninspired astronomical observation extant for 
three thousand years after Adam. 

The objection, however, is worth noticing, and its history worth 
remembering, as a specimen of the way in which ignorant men 
swallow impudent falsehoods, if they only seem to contradict the 
"Word of Truth. When the labors of Oriental Scholars had made 
the Vedas and Shasters — the sacred books of the Hindoos— accessi- 
ble to European philosophers, a wonderful shout was raised among 
infidels. "Here," it was said, "is the true chronology. We 
always knew that man was not a degenerate creature, fallen from 
a higher estate, some few thousand years ago, but that he has ex- 
isted from eternity, in a constant progress toward his present lofty 
position ; and now we have the authentic records of the most an- 
cient and civilized people in the world — the people of India — reach- 
ing back for millions of years before the Mosaic cosmogony, and 
allowing ample time for the development of the noble savage into 
the cultivated philosopher. These records have every mark of 
truth, giving minute details of events, and histories of successive 
lines of princes ; and, moreover, record the principal astronomical 
facts of the successive periods — eclipses, comets, positions of stars, 
&c. — which attest their veracity. Henceforth, the Hebrew records 
must hide their heads. Neither as poetry nor history can they 
pretend to compare with the Vedas." 

The Hindoo Shasters were accordingly, for a time, in high re- 
pute, among people who knew very little about them. Even Br. 
218 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 3 

Adam Clarke was so far led away with the spirit of the age, as to 
pollute his valuable commentary by the insertion of the Gitagovinda, 
after the Chaldee Targum on the Song of Solomon ; where the cu- 
rious reader can satisfy himself as to the scientific value of such 
Pantheistic dotings. By the infidels of Britain and America they 
were appealed to as standard works, of undoubted authority ; and 
hundreds, who declared that it was irrational credulity to believe 
in the Bible, risked their souls on the faith of the Vedas, of which 
they never had read a single sentence ! 

Now, when we remember that these veracious chronicles reach 
back through maha yugs of 4,320,000 years of mortals, a thousand 
of which, or 4,320,000,000, make a kalpa, or one day of the life of 
Brahma, while his night is of the same duration, and his life con- 
sists of a hundred years of such days and nights, about the middle 
of which period the little span of our existence is placed ; — that 
among the facts of the history, are the records of the seven great 
continents of the world, separated by seven rivers, and seven 
chains of mountains, four hundred thousand miles high (reaching 
only to the moon) ; of the families of their kings, one of whom had 
a hundred sons, another only ten thousand, another sixty thousand, 
who were born in a pumpkin, nourished in pans of milk, reduced 
to ashes by the curse of a sage, and restored to life by the waters 
of the Ganges ; — and that among the astronomical observations by 
which the accuracy of these extraordinary facts is confirmed, are 
accounts of deluges, in which the waters not only rose above the 
tops of earth's mountains, but above the seven inferior and three 
superior worlds, reaching even to the Pole >S'tor* — we may well 
wonder at the faith which could receive all this as so true, that on 
the strength of it they rejected the miracles of the Bible as false. 
Even Voltaire ridiculed these stories. 

But a visionary man, named Baillie, calculated the alleged ob- 
servations backwards, and found them sufficiently correct to satisfy 
him that all the rest of the story was equally true. It never seems 
to have occurred to him, that if he could calculate eclipses back- 
wards, so could the Hindoos. It is just as easy to calculate an 
eclipse, or the position of a planet, backwards, as forwards. If I 
watch the motion of the hands of a clock accurately, and find that 
the little hand moves over the twelfth of a circle every hour, and 

• Duff's India, 127. 

219 



4 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

the large' hand around the circle in the same time, and that the 
large hand, noAV at noon, covers the little one, I can calculate that 
at sixteen minutes and a quarter past three it will nearly cover it 
again ; but then, it is just as easy to count that the two hands were 
covered at sixteen minutes and a quarter before nine that morning, 
or that they were exactly in line at 6 a. m. If my clock would 
keep going at the same rate for a thousand years, I could predict 
the position of the hands at any hour of the 29th of March, of the 
year 2857 ; but it is evident that the very same calculation applied 
the other way would show the position that the hands would have 
had a thousand years ago, or five thousand years ago, just as well. 
And if I were to allege that my clock was made by Tubal Cain, 
before the flood, and for proof of the fact declare, that on the first 
of January, 3857, b. c, at 6 o'clock, p. m., I had seen the two 
hands directly in line, and some wiseacre were to calculate the 
time, and find that at that hour the hands ought to have been just 
in that position, and conclude thence that I was undoubtedly one 
of the antediluvians, and the clock no less certainly a specimen of 
the craft of the first artificer in brass and iron, the argument would 
be precisely parallel to the infidel's argument from the Tirvalore 
Tables, and the astronomy of the Vedas. 

But suppose my clock ran a little slow: say half a minute in the 
month, or so ; or that it was made to keep siderial time, which 
differs by a little from solar time, and that I did not know exactly 
what the difference was ; it is evident that on a long stretch of some 
hundreds or thousands of years, I would get out of my reckoning, 
and the hands would not have been in the positions I had calcu- 
lated. Now, this was just what happened with the Brahmins and 
their calculations. The clock of the heavens keeps a uniform rate 
of going, but they made a slight mistake in the counting of it ; and 
so did their infidel friends. But our modern astronomers have got 
the true time, set their clocks, and made their tables by it ; and on 
applying these tables to the pretended Hindoo observations, find 
that they are all wrong, and that no such eclipses as they allege 
ever did, or possibly could have happened in our solar system.* So 
the Hindoo astronomy is now consigned to the same tomb with 
the Hindoo chronology and cosmogony, except when a missionary, 
on the banks of the Ganges exhibits it to the pupils of his English 

* Connection of the Physical Sciences, p. 83. 

220 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 5 

school, as a specimen of the falsehoods which have ever formed the 
swaddling bands of Pantheism ; or when some Louisiana planter 
astonishes a Yankee schoolmaster in search of employment, with 
an exhibition of the profound philosophy sheltered among the cane- 
brakes. 

Failing in the attempt to substitute Brahminism for Christianity, 
infidels beat a retreat from India, and went down into Egypt for 
help. Here they made prodigious discoveries of the scientific and 
religious truths believed by the worshipers of dogs and dung- 
beetles, recorded upon the coffins of holy bulls, and the temples 
sacred to crows and crocodiles. The age was favorable for French 
discoveries. 

Napoleon and his savans cut out of the ceiling of a temple, at 
Dendera, in Egypt, a stone covered with uncouth astronomical, 
astrological, and hieroglyphic figures, which they insisted was a 
representation of the sky at the time the temple was built ; and 
finding a division made between the signs of the Crab and the 
Lion, and marks for the Sun and Moon there, they took it into 
their heads that the Sun must have entered the Zodiac at that spot, 
on the year this Zodiac was made ; and calculating back, found 
that must be at least seventeen thousand years ago. Hundreds of 
thousands visited the wonderful antediluvian monument, in the 
National Library, in Paris, where it had been brought; and where 
infidel commentators were never wanting to inform them that this 
remarkable stone proved the whole Bible to be a series of lies. A 
professor of the University of Breslau published a pamphlet, enti- 
tled Invincible Proof that the Earth is at least ten times older than 
is taught by the Bible. Scores of such publications followed, and 
for fort}' years infidel newspapers, magazines, and reviews, kept 
trumpeting this great refutation of the Bible. From these it de- 
scended to the vulgar, with additions and improvements ; and it is 
now frequently alleged as proving that " ten thousand years before 
Adam was born, the priests of Egypt were carving astronomy on 
the pyramids." There is scarcely one of my French or German 
readers who has not heard of it. 

It did not shake the skeptic's credulity in the least that no two 
of the savans were agreed, by some thousands of years, how old it 
was — that they could not tell what the Egyptian system of astron- 
omy was — and that none of them could read the hieroglyphics which 
explained it. Whatever might be doubtful, of one thing they were 

221 



6 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

all perfectly sure : that it was far older than the creation. But in 
1832 the curious Egyptian astronomy was studied, and it appeared 
that the Sun and Moon were so placed on the Zodiac to mark the 
beginning of the year there ; and the dividing line fenced off one- 
half of the sky under the care of the Sun, while the other was placed 
under the Moon's patronage. Then it was discovered that the po- 
sitions of the stars were represented by the pictures of the gods 
whose names they bore— ^-Jupiter, Saturn, &c. — and by calculating 
the places of these pictures back, it was found that this Zodiac rep- 
resented their places in the year of our Lord 37 : the year of the 
birth of Nero, a great temple-builder and repairer. Finally, Cham- 
pollion learned to read the hieroglyphics, and the names, surnames, 
and titles of the emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian, 
were found on the temple of Denderah ; and on the portico of the 
temple of Esneh, which had been declared to be a few thousand 
years older than that of Denderah, the names of Claudius and Anto- 
ninus Pius ; while the whole workmanship and style of building 
have satisfied all antiquarians that these buildings were erected 
during the declining days of art in the Roman Empire. The 
Roman title, autocrat, engraved on the Zodiac itself, attests its 
antiquity to be not quite two thousand, instead of seventeen or 
twenty-seven thousand years. 

But, not satisfied with merely demolishing the batteries of infi- 
delity, astronomy has been employed to ascertain the dates of 
numbers of events recorded on Egyptian monuments to have hap- 
pened to one or other of the Pharaohs, " beloved of Ammon, and 
brother of the Sun," when such a star was in such a position. 
Mr. Poole has spent years in gathering such inscriptions, and 
in calculating the dates thus furnished. The astronomer royal, 
at Greenwich, Mr. Airy, has reviewed the calculations, and finds 
them correct. Wilkinson, the great Egyptologist, agrees with 
their conclusions. And the result is, that the astronomical chro- 
nology of the Egyptian monuments sustains the Bible Chronology* 
Geology comes forward to confirm the testimony of her elder sister, 
and assures us that the alleged vast antiquity of the Egyptian 
monuments is impossible, as it is not more than 5,000 years since 
the soil of Egypt first appeared above water, as a muddy morass. f 
The learned Adrian Balbo thus sums up the whole question : " No 
» ■ ■ ■ i — ■ 

* Poole's Horse Egyptiacae. t Henri L'Egypte Pharonique. 

222 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 7 

monument, either astronomical or historical, has yet been able to 
prove the books of Moses false ; but with them, on the contrary, 
agree, in the most remarkable manner, the results obtained by the 
most learned philologists, and the prof oundest geometricians.* 

2. To the second objection — That astronomers have discovered 
Btars whose light must have been millions of years traveling to this 
earth, and that consequently these stars must have existed millions 
of years ago, and therefore the Bible makes a false declaration 
when it says that the universe was created only some six or seven 
thousand years ago — I reply by asking, Where does the Bible say so? 

"What," says our objector, "is not that the good old orthodox 
doctrine of Christians and commentators? Do they not unani- 
mously denounce geologists and astronomers as heretics, for assert- 
ing the vast antiquity of the earth?" 

We shall see presently that no such unanimity of denunciation 
has ever existed, and that some of the most ancient and learned 
Christian commentators taught the antiquity of the earth, from the 
Bible, before geology was born. But that is not the question 
before us just now. We are not asking what the good old ortho- 
dox doctrine of Christians, or the unanimous opinion of commenta- 
tors may have been, but what is the reading of the Bible — What 
does this book say? — not, "What does somebody think?" 

" Well," replies our objector, " does not the Bible say, in the first 
of Genesis, that God created the heavens and the earth in six days, 
and Adam on the sixth ; and are not chronologists agreed that that 
was not more than seven thousand years ago, at the very utmost?" 

If the Bible had said that God created the heavens and the earth 
in six days, and that the end of that period was only seven thou- 
sand years ago, it would by no means follow that the beginning of 
it was only a few hours before that ; for every Bible reader knows, 
that the most common use of the word day, in scripture, is to de- 
note, not a period of twenty-four hours, but a period of time which 
may be of various lengths.! In this very narrative, (Gen. 2:5) it is 
used to denote the whole period of the six days' work: " In the day 
the Lord God made the earth and the heavens." Does it mean just 
twenty-four hours there? In the first of Genesis, its duration is 
defined to consist of "the evening and the morning." Before our 
infidel chronologist finds out the Bible date of creation, he must be 

L * Atlas Ethnographique, Eth. I. f See Cruden's Concordance, Art. Day. 

223 



8 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

able to tell us of what length was the evening which preceded the 
first morning, and with it constituted the first day ? God has of 
set purpose placed stumbling blocks for scoffers at the entrance 
and the exit of the Bible, as a rebuke to pride and vain curiosity.* 
He nowhere says that the first of the six days of Genesis was the 
first day, absolutely, of the earth's existence. And lest any one 
should think so, from the use o-f the ordinal adjective frst, he does 
not use that word ; but while each of the other days is called " day 
second," " day third," &c, the first of the series is distinguished 
by the cardinal numeral, as "day one ;" literally, "And evening was 
and morning was day one." The first day and the last day are 
hidden from man. 

But if our objector had read the Bible attentively, he would have 
seen that it does not say that God created the heavens and the earth 
in six days. Before it begins to give any account of the six days' 
work, it tells us of a previous state of disorder ; and going back 
beyond that again, it says, "In the beginning, God created the 
heavens and the earth." It is as self-evident that this beginning 
was before the six days' work, as that the world must have existed 
before it could be adjusted to its present form. How long before, 
the Bible does not say, nor does the objector pretend to know. It 
may have been as many millions of years as he assigns to the stars, 
or twice as many, for any thing he knows to the contrary. He 
must have overlooked the first two verses of the Bible, else he had 
never made this objection ; which is simply a blunder, arising from 
incapacity to read a few verses of Scripture correctly. 

But it is replied, " Does not the Bible say, in the fourth com- 
mandment, ' In six days the Lord made heaven, and earth, and the 
sea, and all that in them is," &c. ? True. But we are speaking 
just now of a very different work: the work of creation. If any 
one does not know the difference between create and make, let him 
turn to his dictionary, and "Webster will inform him that the pri- 
mary literal meaning of create is, " To produce ; to bring into 
being, from nothing; to cause to exist." The example he gives to 
illustrate his definition is this verse, " In the beginning God created 
the heavens and the earth." But the primary meaning of make is, 
" To compel: to constrain;" thence, "to form of materials;" and 
he illustrates the generic difference between these two words by a 

* Dan. 12 : 10. Job, 38 : 4. Col. 2 : 18. 
224 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 9 

quotation from Dwight : " God not only made, but created : he not 
only made the work, but the materials." Both words are as good 
translations of the Hebrew originals, bra, and oshe, as can be given. 

If any of my readers has not a dictionary, he can satisfy himself 
thoroughly as to the different meanings of these two words, and of 
their equivalents in the original Hebrew, by looking at their use 
in his Bible. Thus, he will find create applied to the creation of 
the heavens and the earth, in the beginning, when there could have 
been no pre-existent materials to make them from ; unless we adopt 
the Atheistic absurdity, of the eternity of matter — that is to say, 
that the paving-stones made themselves * Then it is applied to the 
production of animal life — v. 21 — which is not a product or combi- 
nation of any lifeless matter, but a direct and constant resistance 
to the chemical and mechanical laws which govern lifeless matter: 
"God created great whales, and every living creature that inoveth."f 
Next it is applied to the production of the human race, as a species 
distinct from all other living creatures, and not derived from any 
of them. " God created man in his own image." % It is in like*" 
manner applied to all God's subsequent bestowals of animal life 
and rational souls, which are directly bestowed by God, and are 
not in the power of any creature to give. " Thou sendest forth 
thy spirit: they are created." " Remember now thy Creator, in 
the days of thy youth." \ In all these instances, the use of the 
word determines its literal meaning to be what. Webster defines it: 
u To bring into being from nothing." 

The metaphorical use of the word is equally expressive of its 
literal meaning, for it is applied to the production of new disposi- 
tions of mind and soul utterly opposite to those previously existing. 
" Create in me a clean heart ;" which God thus explains : " A new 
heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and 
I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give 
you an heart of flesh." || The Hebrew word bra has as many 
derivative meanings as our English word create ; as we speak of 
" creating a peer," " long abstinence creating uneasiness," &c. ; but 
these no more change the primitive idea in the one case than in the 
other. 



* Tract 23, Did the World make itself? \ Psalm 104 : 30. Eccl. 12 : 1. 

f Gen. 1:21. \ Psalm 51 : 10. Ezekiel, 36 : 26. 
% Gen. 1 : 27. 

15 225 



10 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

From this word create, the Bible very plainly distinguishes the 
■words make and form, using them as the complement of the former, 
in many passages which speak of both creation and making. Thus, 
man was both created and made. His life and soul are spoken of 
as a creation ; his body as a formation from the dust ; his deputed 
authority over the earth also implies a primal creation, and subse- 
quent investiture ; and so both terms are applied to it. So the 
words make and form are applied to the production of the bodies 
of animals from pre-existing materials, while animal life is ever 
spoken of as a product of creative power. But, that we may see 
that these processes are distinct, and that the words which express 
them have distinctive meanings, the Author of the Bible takes care 
to use them both in reference to this very work, in such a way that 
we cannot fail to perceive he intends some distinction, unless we 
suppose that he fills the Bible with useless tautologies. For in- 
stance, " On the seventh day, God rested from all his work, which 
God created and made." " These are the generations of the heavens 
and the earth, when they were created; in the day the Lord God 
made the earth and the heavens." "But now thus saith the Lord 
that created thee, Jacob, and he that formed thee, Israel/' "For 
thus saith the Lord, that created the heavens, God himself, that 
formed the earth, and made it; He hath established it; He created 
it not in confusion ; he formed it to be inhabited." * In all these 
passages creation is clearly distinguished from formation and 
making, if the Bible is not a mass of senseless repetitions. If 
create, and make, and form, have all the same meaning, why use 
them all in the same verse. These, and many similar passages, 
show that the Bible teaches the work of creation — calling things 
into being — to be previous to and distinct from the work of making 
— forming of materials already created. 

Between these two widely different processes — of the original 
creation of the universe, and the subsequent preparation of the 
habitable earth, by the six days' work — two intervening periods 
are indicated by scripture, both of indefinite length. The first of 
these is that which intervened between the original creation and 
the period of disorder indicated in the second verse. The second 
is that disordered period during which the earth continued without 
form and void. 



* Gen. 2 : 1-5. Tsa. 43 : 1-7 ; 45 : 1, 2. 
226 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 11 

That original chaos which some would find in the second verse, 
never had any existence, save in the brains of atheistic philoso- 
phers. It is purely absurd. God never created a chaos. Man 
never saw it. The crystals of the smallest grain of sand, the 
sporules of the humblest fungus on the rotten tree, the animalculae 
in the filthiest pool of mud, are as orderly in their arrangements, 
as perfect after their kind, and as wisely adapted to their station, 
as the angels before the throne of God. And as man never saw, so 
he has no language to describe a state of original disorder; for 
every word he can use implies a previous state of regularity ; as, dis- 
order tells of order dissolved ; con-fusion of previous forms melted 
together. So the poets who have tried to describe a chaos have 
been obliged to represent it as the wreck of a former state. 

Both the Bible language and the Bible narrative correspond to 
the philosophy and philology of the case ; for, by the use of the 
substantive verb, in the past tense, implying progressive being, 
according to the usual force of the word in Hebrew, we are told 
literally, "the earth became without form and void." God did not 
create it so, but after it was created, and by a series of revolutions 
not recorded, it became disordered and empty. The Holy Spirit 
takes care to explain this verse, by quoting it in Jer. 4: 23, as the 
appropriate symbolical description of the state of a previously ex- 
isting and regularly constituted body politic, reduced to confusion 
by the calamities of war. Again, he explains both the terms used 
in it in Isa. 34 : 11, by using them to describe, not the rude and 
undigested mass of the heathen poet, but the wilderness condition 
of a ravaged country, and the desolate ruins of once beautiful and 
populous cities : " He will stretch out upon it the line of confusion, 
and the stones of emptiness." In both these cases the previous ex- 
istence of an orderly and populous state is implied. And finally, 
we are expressly assured, that the state of disorder mentioned in 
the 2d verse of Gen. 1, was not the original condition of the earth — 
Isaiah, 45 : 18 — where the very same word is used as in Gen. 1 : 2, 
" He created it not, teu, disordered, in confusion." The period of 
the earth's previous existence in an orderly state, or that occupied 
by the revolutions and catastrophes which disordered its surface, 
is not recorded in scripture. 

The second period is that of disorder, which must have been of 
some duration, more or less, and is plainly implied to have been 
of considerable length, in the declaration that " the Spirit of the 

227 



12 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

Lord moved" — literally was brooding (a figure taken from the in- 
cubation of fowls) — " upon the face of the waters.-" But no portion 
of Scripture gives any intimation of the length of this period. 

If, then, astronomers and geologists assert that the earth was 
millions, or hundreds of millions of years in process of preparation 
for its present state, by a long series of successive destructions and 
renovations, and gradual formations, there is not one word in the 
Bible to contradict that opinion ; but, on the contrary, very many 
texts which fully and unequivocally imply its truth. But, as the 
knowledge of the exact age of the earth is by no means necessary 
to any man's present happiness, or the salvation of his soul, it is 
no-where taught in the Bible. God has given us the Stars to teach 
us Astronomy, the Earth to teach us Geology, and the Bible to 
teach us Religion, and neither contradicts the other. 

This is no new interpretation, evoked to meet the necessities of 
modern science. The Jewish Rabbins, and those of the early 
Christian fathers who gave any attention to criticism, are perfectly 
explicit in recognizing these distinctions. The doctrine of the 
creation of the world only six or seven thousand years ago, is a 
product of monkish ignorance of the original language of the Bible. 
But Clemens of Alexandria, Chrysostom, and Gregory Nazianzen, 
after Justin Martyr, teach the existence of an indefinite period 
between the creation and the formation of all things. Basil and 
Origen account for the existence of light before the Sun, by alleging 
that the Sun existed, but that the chaotic atmosphere prevented 
his rays from being visible till the first day, and his light till the 
third.* Augustine, in his first homily, represents the first state 
of the earth, in Gen. 1 : 1, as bearing the same relation to its 
finished state, that the seed of a tree does to the trunk, branches, 
leaves, and fruit. Horsley, Edward King, Jennings, Baxter, and 
many others, who wrote during the last two centuries, but before 
the period of geological discovery, explained the 2d verse substan- 
tially as did Bishop Patrick, a hundred and fifty years ago. "How 
long all things continued in confusion, we are not told. It might 
have been, for any thing that is here revealed, a very great while." f 

Some persons, however, have supposed that the chaos of the 
second verse succeeded immediately to the creation of the first, and 

* Wiseman's Lectures on the Connection of Science and Revealed Religion, 1 — 297. 
f Commentary on Gen. 1 : 2. 

228 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 13 

that the six days' work in like manner followed that instanta- 
neously, or at least after a very brief interval, because the records 
of these cycles are connected by the word and, which they think, 
precludes the idea of any lengthened periods or intervals. But 
the slightest reflection upon the meaning of the word will show 
that and cannot of itself be any measure of time, its use being to 
indicate merely sequence and connection. When used historically, 
it always implies an interval of time ; for there can be no succession 
without an interval : but the length of that interval must be deter- 
mined from the context, or some other source. A very cursory 
perusal of the Bible, either in English or Hebrew, will show that 
very often in its brief narratives, the interval indicated by and, and 
its Hebrew originals, is a very long time. The descent of Jacob and 
his children into Egypt is connected with the record of their 
deaths, in the very next verse, by this word and, which thus in- 
cludes nearly the lifetime of a generation. That event, again, is 
connected with a change of dynasty in Egypt, and the oppression 
and multiplication of the Israelites there, recorded in the next 
verse, by the same word, vai, and ; while the period over which it 
reaches was over two hundred years. * So in the brief record of 
the family of Adam, after reciting the birth of Setb, the historian 
'adds, in the next verse, " And to Seth also was born a son, and he 
called his name Enos ;" while the interval thus indicated by the 
word and was a hundred and five years. The command to build 
the ark, recorded in the last verse of the sixth chapter of Genesis, 
is connected with the command to enter into it, in the first verse of 
the seventh chapter, by this same word and, although we know, 
from the nature of the case, that the interval required for the con- 
struction of such a huge vessel must have been considerable ; and 
from the third verse of the sixth chapter, we learn that it was a 
hundred and twenty years. So the births and deaths of the ante- 
diluvians are connected by this same word, and, throughout the 
fifth chapter of Genesis ; while the interval, as we see from the nar- 
rative, was often eight or nine hundred years. The descent of the 
Holy Spirit upon Christ, to qualify him for judging the world, is 
connected with the actual discharge of that office, in the destruction 
of Antichrist by the breath of his mouth, by this word and,\ 
although the interval has been over eighteen hundred years. If 

*Exo. 1:5, 8. tlsa. 11:3,4. 

229 



14 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

in the records of the generations of mortal men, the word and is 
customarily employed as a connecting link in the narrations of 
events separated by an interval of hundreds of years, it is quite 
consistent with the strictest propriety of language to employ it, 
with an enlargement proportioned to the duration of the subject of 
discourse, to connect intervals of millions, in the narrative of the 
generations of the heavens and the earth. 

The Bible uniformly attributes the most remote antiquity to the 
work of creation. So far from supposing man to be even approxi- 
mately coeval with it, the emphatic reproof of human presumption 
is couched in the remarkable words, " Where wast thou, when I 
laid the foundations of the earth ?" In majestic contrast with the 
frail human race, Moses glances at the primeval monuments of 
God's antiquity, as though by them he could form some faint con- 
ceptions even of eternity, and sings, " Before the mountains were 
brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the uni- 
verse, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God." * 

The very word here used, the beginning, is in itself an emphatic 
refutation of the notion that the work of creation is only some six 
or seven thousand years old. Geologists have been unable to 
invent a better, and have borrowed from the Bible this very form 
of speech, to designate those strata beyond which human know- 
ledge cannot penetrate — the primary formations. But, with far 
greater propriety, the Holy Spirit uses this word with regard to 
ages, compared with which the utmost range of the astronomer's or 
geologist's reasonings is but as the tale of yesterday. For this 
word, in Bible usage, marks the last promontory on the boundless 
ocean of eternity : the only positive word by which we can express 
the most remote period of past duration. It is not a date — a point 
of duration. It is a period — a vast cycle. It has but one boun- 
dary : that where creation rises from its abyss. Created eye has 
never seen the other shore. It is that vast period which the Bible 
assigns to the manifestations of the Word of God, " whose goings 
forth have been of old, from everlasting." Carrying our astonished 
gaze far back beyond the era of his creature, man, and ages before 
the "all things" that were made by him, the Bible places this be- 
ginning on the very shore of the eternity of God, when it declares, 
" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 

* Psalm 90. 

230 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 15 

the Word was God." * Thus, both by the use of the imperfect 
tense, was, denoting continued existence, and by the connection of 
this beginning with the eternity of the Word, does the Bible teach 
us to dismiss from our thoughts all narrow views of the pe- 
riod of duration employed in manifesting the glory of the self- 
existent Eternal One, and to raise our conceptions to the highest 
possible pitch, and then feel that far beyond the grasp of human 
calculation lies that beginning, which includes the years of the 
right hand of the Most High, and is even used as one of the names 
of the eternal : " I am the Beginning and the Ending, saith the 
Lord, Who is, and Who was, and Who is to come — The Almighty."! 

In another Bible exhibition of the eternity of the Son of God, we 
are conducted from that beginning, downward, stage by stage, from 
those periods of remote antiquity prior to the formation of water, 
the upheaval of the mountains, the alluvial deposits, the subsidence 
of the existing sea basins, and the adornment of the habitable parts 
of the earth, to that comparatively recent event, the existence of the 
sons of men. Our ideas of the eternity of the love of Christ are 
thus enhanced, by the vastness of the ages which stretch out be- 
tween the human race and that beginning when he was, as it were, 
" The Lamb slain from before the foundations of the world." 

"The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, 

" Before his ivorks of old. 

" I was set up from everlasting, 

u From the beginning, or ever the earth was. 

" When there were no depths, I was brought forth ; 

" When there were no fountains, abounding with water ; 

" Before the mountains were settled, 

" Before the hills, was I brought forth ; 

" While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, 

" Nor the highest part of the dust of the world. 

11 When he prepared the heavens, I was there ; 

" When he described a circle upon the face of the deep ; 

" When he established the clouds above ; 

" When he strengthened the fountains of the deep ; 

"When he gave to the sea his decree, 

" That the waters should not pass his commandment ; 

" When he appointed the foundations of the earth : 



* John, 1:1. t Rev. 1 : 4, 

231 



16 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

" Then was I by him, as one brought up with him ; 

"And I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him: 

" Rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth ; 

" And my delights were with the sons of men* " 

Let the geologist, then, penetrate as deeply as he can into the 
profundities of the foundations of the earth, and bring forth the 
monuments of their hoary antiquity : we will follow with the most 
unfaltering faith, and receive with joy these proofs of his eternal 
power and Godhead. Let the astronomer raise his telescope, and 
reflect on our astonished eyes the light which flashed from morning 
stars, on the day of this earth's first existence, or even the rays 
which began to travel from distant suns, millions of years ere the 
first morning dawned on our planet : we will place them as jewels in 
the crown of Him who is the bright and morning star. They shall 
shed a sacred luster over the pages of the Bible, and give new 
beauties of illustration to its majestic symbols. But never will 
geologist penetrate, much less exhaust, the profundity of its mys- 
teries, nor astronomer attain, much less explore, the sublimity of 
that beginning revealed in its pages ; for eye hath not seen, nor ear 
heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive, either 
the antiquity, or the nature, or the duration of the things which 
God hath prepared for them that love him. Human science will 
never be able to reach the Bible era of creation. It is placed in 
an antiquity beyond the power of human calculation, in that sub- 
lime sentence with which it. introduces mortals to the Eternal : "In 
the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." 

3. The third objection we have named is equally unfounded. 
The Bible no-where teaches that the shy is a solid sphere, to which 
the stars are fixed, and which revolves with them around the earth. 
I know that infidels allege that the word firmament, in the first 
chapter of Genesis, conveys this meaning. It does not. Neither 
the English word, nor the Hebrew original, has any such meaning. 
As to the meaning of the English word, I adhere to the dictionary. 
Infidels must not be allowed to coin uncouth meanings for words, 
different from the known usage of the English tongue, for which 
Webster is undeniable authority. His definition of firmament is, 
" The region of the air ; the sky, or heavens. In scripture, the 
word denotes an expanse — a wide extent ; for such is the significa- 

* Proverbs, 8 : 22. 
232 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 17 

tion of the Hebrew word, coinciding with regio, region, and reach. 
The original, therefore, does not convey the sense of solidity, but 
of stretching — extension. The great arch or expanse over our 
heads, in which are placed the atmosphere and the clouds, and in 
which the stars appear to be placed, and are really seen." The 
word firmament, then, conveys no such meaning as the infidel 
alleges, to any man who understands the English tongue. 

No Hebrew speaking man or woman ever did, or ever could un- 
derstand the original Hebrew word reqio in any other sense than 
that of expanse; for the verb from which it is formed means to 
extend, or spread out, as even the English reader may see, by a 
few examples of its use, in the following passages of scripture ; 
where the English words by which the verb reqo is expressed, are 
marked in italics. " Then did I beat them small as the dust of the 
earth, and did stamp them as the mire of the street, and did spread 
them abroad." " The .goldsmith spreadeth it over with gold." 
" Thus saith the Lord : He that created the heavens, and stretched 
them out; He that spread forth the earth." "I am the Lord, that 
maketh all things ; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, and 
spreadeth abroad the earth by myself." " To him that stretcheth 
out the earth above the waters." "The censers of these sinners 
against their own souls, let them make them broad plates, for a 
covering for the altar. And they were made broad." " Hast thou 
with him spread out the sky ; ; ' * or, in Humboldt's elegant render- 
ing, " the pure ether, spread (during the scorching heat of the 
south wind) as a melted mirror over the parched desert." f We 
might refer to the opinions of lexicographers, all unanimous in as- 
cribing the same idea to the word ; but the authorities given above 
are conclusive. The meaning, then, of the Hebrew word rendered 
firmament, is so utterly removed from the notion of compactness, 
or solidity, or metallic or crystalline spheres, that it is derived from 
the very opposite : the fineness or tenuity produced by processes of 
expansion. Science has not been able to this day to invent a better 
word for the regions of space than the literal rendering of the 
original Hebrew word used by Moses — the expanse. 

The inspired writers of the New Testament, though they found 
the world full of all the absurdities of the Greek philosophy, and 

* 2 Sam. 22 : 43. Isa, 40 : 19 ; 44 : 24 ; 42 : 5 ; Ps. 136 : 6. Numbers, 17 : 38. Job, 
37: 18. 
f Cosmos, v. 2, p. 60. 

233 



18 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

their Greek translations of the Bible continually using the word 
stereoma, which expressed these notions, never used it but once, and 
then not for the sky, but for the steadfastness of faith in Christ. 
Their thus using it once, shows that they were acquainted with 
the word, and its proper meaning, and that their disuse of it was 
intentional ; while their disuse of it, and choice of another word to 
denote the heavens, proves decisively that they disapproved of the 
absurdity which it was understood to express. Now, whether you 
account for this fact by admitting their inspiration, or by alleging 
that they drew their language from the Hebrew original, and not 
from the Greek translation, it is in either case perfectly conclusive 
as to the scriptural meaning of the word. Indeed, it is marvellous 
how any man who is familiar with his Bible, and knows that the 
scriptures usually describe the sky by metaphors conveying the 
very opposite ideas to those of solidity or permanence — as, 
" stretched out like a curtain," " spread abroad like a tent to 
dwell in," " folded up like a vesture," and the like — should allow 
himself to be imposed on by the impudent falsehood of Voltaire, 
that the Bible teaches us that the sky is a solid metallic or crystal 
hemisphere, supported by pillars. 

Those beautiful figures of sacred poetry in which the universe is 
represented as the palace of the Great King, adorned with majestic 
" pillars," and " windows of heaven," whence he scatters his 
gifts among his expectant subjects in the courts below, have been 
grossly abused for the support of this miserable falsehood. We 
are assured, that so ignorant was Moses of the true nature of the 
atmosphere, and of the origin of rain, that he believed and taught 
that there was an ocean of fresh water on the outside of this metal 
hemisphere, which covered the earth like a great sugar-kettle, bot- 
tom upwards, and was supported on pillars ; and at the bottom of 
the ocean were trap-doors, to let the rain through ; which trap- 
doors in the metal firmament are to be understood, when the Bible 
speaks of the windows of heaven. Now, the bottom of an ocean is 
an odd place for windows, and a trap-door is rather a strange kind 
of watering-pot ; and if Moses put the ocean of fresh water on the 
outside of his metal hemisphere, he must have changed his notions 
of gravity materially from the time he planned the brazen hemi- 
sphere for the tabernacle, which he turned mouth upwards, and 
put the water in the inside. 

While such writers are quite clear about the metal trap-doora 
234 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 19 

and the ocean, they have not yet fully fathomed the construction 
and arrangement of the pillars. Whether the Bible teaches that 
they are "pillars of salt," like Lot's wife, or of flesh and blood, 
like "James, Cephas, and John," or such "iron pillars and brazen 
walls" as Jeremiah was against the house of Israel — whether they 
consisted of " cloud and fire," like the pillar Moses describes in 
the next book as floating in the sky over the camp of Israel, or are 
" pillars of smoke," such as ascend out of the wilderness — whether 
they are those " pillars of the earth which tremble" when God 
shakes it, or " the pillars of heaven which are astonished at his 
reproof" — whether they are the pillars of the earth and its anar- 
chical inhabitants, which Asaph bore up, or are composed of the 
same materials as Paul's " pillar and basis of the truth," or the 
pillars of victory which Christ erects "in the temple of God"* — ■ 
they have not yet decided. Whether the Hebrews understood 
these pillars to be arranged on the outside of the metal hemisphere, 
and if so, to imagine any use for them there ; or in the inside, and 
in that case whether they kept the sky from falling upon the 
earth, or only supported the earth from falling into the sky, these 
learned men are by no means agreed. Having trampled the pearl 
into fragments, their attempts to combine them into another 
shape are more amusing than successful; and it is hard to say 
which of the seven opinions ascribed to the Bible by infidel com- 
mentators is least probable. That opinion, however, will, doubt- 
less, after more vigorous and protracted rooting, be discovered and 
greedily swallowed amid grunts of satisfaction : an appropriate re- 
ward of such laborious stupidity. 

The absurdities of the Greek philosophers were not drawn from 
the Bible. Had the Greeks read the Bible more, they would have 
preserved the common sense God gave them a great deal longer, 
and would not, while professing themselves to be wise, have become 
such fools as to adore blocks and stones, and dream of metal firma- 
ments. But they turned away their ears from the truth, and were 
turned unto such fables as infidels falsely ascribe to the Bible. A 
thousand years before the cycles and epicycles of the Ptolemaic 
astronomy were invented, and before learned Greeks had learned 
to talk nonsense about crystal spheres, and trap-doors in the bottom 

* Gen. 19 : 26. Exo. 13 : 20 ; 33 : 10. Jere. 1 : 18. Gal. 2 : 7. Song, 3 : 6. Job, 
9: 6; 26; 11. Pe. 75:3. 1 Tim. 3 : 15. Rev. 3 : 12. 

235 



20 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

of celestial oceans, the writers of the Bible were recording those 
conversations of pious philosophers concerning stars, and clouds, 
and rain, from which Galileo derived the first hints of the causes 
of barometrical phenomena. ' The origin of rain, its proportion to 
the amount of evaporation, and the mode of its distribution by con- 
densation, could not be propounded by Humboldt himself with 
more brevity and perspicuity than they are expressed by the Idu- 
mean philosoper : " He maketh small the drops of water ; they pour 
down rain according to the vapor thereof, which the clouds do drop 
and distil upon man abundantly. Also, can any understand the 
spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacles." * The 
cause of this rarefaction of cold water — the clouds are not steam — 
is as much a mystery to the British Association as it was to Elihu ; 
and even were all the mysteries of the electrical tension of vapors 
disclosed, "the balancings of the clouds" would only be more 
clearly discovered to be, as the Bible declares, "the wonderful 
works of Him who is perfect in wisdom." But the gravity of the 
atmosphere, the comparitive density of floating water, and its in- 
creased density by discharges of electricity, were as well known to 
Job and his friends as they are to the wisest of our modern philo- 
sophers. "He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under 
the whole heaven, to make weight to air, and regulate waters by 
measure, in his making a law for the rain, and a path for the light- 
ning of thunder." f Three thousand years before the theory of the 
trade winds was demonstrated, or before Maury had discovered the 
rotation and revolutions of the wind-currents, it was written in the 
Bible, "The wind goeth towards the south, and turneth about to the 
north. And the wind returneth again, according to his circuits." % 

Thousands of years before Newton, Galileo, and Copernicus were 
born, Isaiah was writing about the " orbit of the earth," and its 
insignificance in the eyes of the Creator of the host of heaven. \ 
Job was conversing with his friends, on the inclination of its axis, 
and its equilibrium in space : " He spreadeth out the north over 
the empty space, and hangeth the earth upon nothing." || 

The " waters above the heavens," which the Holy Ghost harmo- 
nizes with other Cosmical bodies — Sun, Moon, Fixed Stars, and 



* Job, 36 : 27. g Isa. 40th ch. 

t Job, 28 : 24— literal reading. || Job, 26 : 7. 

% Eccl. 1 : 6. 

236 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 21 

distant Galaxies, Heavens of Heavens — in his arrangement of cho- 
risters for the grand anthem of the universe, have no reference to, 
or connection with our earth. They refer to such phenomena as 
are indicated by the atmosphere loaded with vapors of Mercury 
and Yenus, the " polar snows" and " greenish seas " of Mars, the 
trade winds of Jupiter, and the rings of Saturn, "composed of a 
fluid a little denser than water," in our own system, and to analo- 
gous collections of water in more distant firmaments.* 

So far from entertaining the least idea of the waters of the at- 
mosphere being contained either on the outside or the inside of a 
metal or solid hemisphere, the writers of the Bible never once use, 
even figuratively, any expression conveying it. On the contrary, 
the well known scriptural figures for the fountains of the rain, are 
the soft, elastic, leathern waterskins of the east, "the bottles of 
the clouds," or the wide, flowing shawl or upper garment wherein 
the people of the east are accustomed to tie up loose, scattering 
substances.! " He bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and 
the cloud is not rent under them." "Who hath bound the waters 
in a garment;" "As a vesture thou shalt change them;" or the 
loose, flowing curtains of a royal pavilion; or the extended covering 
of a tent: "his pavilion around him were dark waters, and thick 
clouds of the skies;" "the spreadings of the clouds, and the noise 
of his tabernacles ;" " he spread a cloud for a covering." $ Instead 
of the notion of a single ocean, the " number of the clouds " is pro- 
verbial in the scriptures || for a multitude ; and in direct opposition 
to the permanence of a vast metallic arch, the chosen emblems of 
instability and transitoriness, and of the utmost rapidity of motion, 
suitable even for the chariot of Jehovah, are selected from the 
heavens. | 

In short, there is not the slightest vestige of any foundation in 
scripture for the notions long afterwards introduced by the Greek 
philosophers. .Yet Christians, who have read these passages of 
scripture over and over again, allow themselves to give heed to infi- 
dels, who have not, asserting, without the shadow of proof, that 



* Psalm 148. HerschelPs Outlines, § 509, 510, 512. Annual of Scientific Discovery, 
1842, p. 376. 
f Ruth, 3 : 15. 

X Job, 38 : 37 ; 26 : 8 ; 38 : 9 ; 36 : 29. Ps. 105 : 39 ; 77 : 17. 
|| Isa., 44 : 22. Jere., 4 : 13. Job, 38 : 37. Prov., 30 : 4. 
I Eccl., 11 : 4. Pa. 104 : 3. Mat. 24 : 30. 

237 



22 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

Moses taught absurdities which were not invented for a thousand 
years after his death. The Bible gives hints of many profound 
scientific truths ; it teaches no absurdities ; and, instead of coun- 
tenancing the notion that the shy is a solid metal hemisphere, it 
teaches, both literally and figuratively , directly the contrary. 

4. We come now to the fourth objection, that the Bible repre- 
sents God as creating light before the Sun, which is supposed to be 
an absurdity, and as creating the Sun, Moon, and Stars only two 
days before Adam. This is the only Astronomical objection to the 
Bible account of creation which has any foundation of scripture 
statement to rest upon ; but we shall soon see that here, also, infi- 
dels have not done themselves the justice of reading the Bible with 
attention. 

I have already corrected that confusion of ideas and carelessness 
of perusal which confounds the two distinct and different words, 
create and make, so as to make both mean the same thing. God 
created the heavens, as well as the earth, in the beginning : a period 
of such remote antiquity that, in Bible language, it stands next to 
eternity. The Sun and Moon then came into being. Through 
what changes they passed, or when they were endowed with the 
power of giving light to the universe, the Bible no-where declares ; 
but on the fourth day, it tells us, they were made lights, or, literal- 
ly, light-bearers, to this earth. The comparatively insignificant 
place allotted to the stars, in the narrative of this earth's formation, 
corresponds, with the strictest propriety, to the nature of the dis- 
course ; which is not an account of the system of the universe, but 
of the process of preparation of this earth for the abode of man. 
Compared with the influences of "the two great light-bearers/' 
those of the stars are very insignificant ; since the Sun sheds more 
light and heat on the earth in one day, than all the fixed stars 
have done since the creation of Adam. It is evident, from the 
words, that Moses is not speaking either of their original crea- 
tion, or of their actual magnitude, but of their appointment and 
use in relation to us, when he says, "And God made two great 
light-bearers (the greater light-bearer to rule the day, and the 
lesser light-bearer to rule the night), and the stars. And God set 
them in the firmament of the heavens, to give light upon the earth, 
and to rule over the day and the night, and to divide the light 
from the darkness." 

Neither here nor elsewhere does he say they were created at this 
238 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 23 

time, but in all the subsequent references uses other words, such 
as "prepared," "divided," "made," "appropriated," "made for 
ruling," "gave:" a studious omission, which shows that the author 
of the Bible had not forgotten how long it was since he had called 
them into being. The Bible, then, does not say that God created 
the Sun and Stars only two days before Adam. 

Another correction of careless Bible reading is necessary, that 
we may be satisfied about what the Bible does not say, ere we begin 
to defend what it does say. The Bible does not say, nor lead us 
to believe, that the darkness spoken of in the second verse of the 
first of Genesis had existed from eternity. Darkness is not eternal: 
it requires the exercise of creative power for its production ; but 
light is the eternal dwelling of the Word of God.* The darkness 
which brooded over our earth, at the period of its formation, is very 
plainly described in the Bible as a temporary phenomenon, inci- 
dent to and necessary for the birth of ocean. It is confined by the 
adverb of time, when, to the period of condensation, upheaval, and 
subsidence, occupied by the birth of that gigantic infant, u when 
it burst forth as though it had issued from the womb ; when I made 
the cloud a garment for it, and thick darkness a swaddling band 
for it, and broke up for it my decreed place, and set bars and 
doors." f The Sun may have shone for millions of years before 
upon the earth, or might have been shining with all his brilliance 
at that very time, while not a single ray penetrated the thick dark- 
ness of the vapors in which earth was clothed. But whether or 
not, darkness must, from its very nature, be limited, both in space 
and time. To speak of infinite and eternal darkness is as unscrip- 
tural as it is absurd. The source of light is Uncreated and Eternal. J 

Further — if my readers are not tired with these perpetual cor- 
rections of careless reading and mistaken meaning — the light called 
into existence in the third verse of the first chapter of Genesis is as 
evidently a different word from the two lights spoken of in the 
fourteenth verse, as the singular is different from the plural ; and 
the thing signified by it is as distinct from the things spoken of in 
the fourteenth verse, as the abstract is from the concrete : as, when 
I say of the first, " light travels 195,000 miles per second," but 



*Isa. 45:7. 1 John, 1:5, Dan. 2:22. 1 Tim. 6:16. 
f Job, 38 : 9, 10. Literally, In my making, &o. 
1 Key. 21 : 23 ; 22 : 5. Isa. 60 : 19. 

239 



24 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

mean a totally distinct subject when I say, " Extinguish the 
lights." The Hebrew words are even more palpably different, the 
word for light, in the third verse, being aur, while the words for 
the lights, in the fourth days' work, are maurt and at emaur: words 
as distinct in shape and sense as our English words, light and the 
lighthouses. 

The locality of the light of the third verse is, moreover, wholly 
different from that of the light-bearers of the fourteenth verse. 
That was placed on earth — these in heaven. It was of the earth 
alone the writer was speaking, in the second verse ; the earth alone 
is the subject of the following verses. It was the darkness of earth 
that needed to be illuminated ; but there is not the remotest hint, 
in any portion of scripture, that any other planet or star was 
shrouded in gloom at this time. But, on the contrary, we are 
most distinctly informed that the wonders which God was perform- 
ing in this world at that very time were distinctly visible amidst 
the cheerful illumination of other orbs, " when the morning stars 
sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy," * as this 
earth emerged from its temporary darkness. It was not from the 
light of heaven, but out of this darkness of earth, that God, -who 
still draws the lightning's flash from the black thunder-cloud, com- 
manded the light to shine, f And it was upon this earth, and not 
throughout the universe, that it produced alternate day and night. 
To extend this command for the illumination of the darkened earth, 
so as to mean the production of light in general, and the lighting 
of the most distant telescopic, and even invisible stars — which are 
neither specified in the command itself, nor by any necessity of 
language or scripture implied in it, but, on the contrary, excluded, 
by the express scripture declarations of the pre-existence of light, 
and of morning stars — is an outrage alike against all canons of 
criticism, laws of grammar, and dictates of common sense. The 
command, " Let there be light," had respect to this earth only. 

The Bible does represent this earth as illuminated at a time 
when the Sun was not visible from its surface — perhaps not visible 
at all. Now, if any one will undertake to scoff at the Bible for 
speaking of light without sunshine, or of the sun shining upon a 
dark earth — as infidels abundantly do — we demand that he tell us, 

* Job, 38 : 7. t 2 Cor. 4 : 6. 

240 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 25 

What is light, and how is it connected with the Sun ? If he can 
not, let him cease to scoff at matters too high for him. 

If he can tell, he knows that the retardation of Encke's comet, 
which every year falls nearer and nearer the Sun, has discovered 
the existence of an attenuated ether in the expanse or firmament; 
and that the experiments of Arago on the polarization of light 
have finally demonstrated, that our sensation of light is exerted by 
a series of vibrations or undulations of this fluid.* lie will then 
be able to perceive the propriety with which the Author of light 
and of the Bible speaks, not of creating light, as if it were a material 
substance, but of forming or commanding its display. And he will 
be better able to comprehend the beauty and scientific propriety 
with which he selected the active participle of the verb to flow, as 
the name for the undulations of this fluid ; for the primary meaning 
of the Hebrew verb ar is to flow, or, when used as a noun, a flood. 
"It shall be cast out and drowned, as by the flood of Egypt." f 
And of the like import are the nouns, iar and aur, formed from 
it. " Who is this that covereth up like a flood — whose waters are 
moved as the rivers." t The philosopher, even though he be a 
skeptic, will cease to mock the Bible when he reads there, that 
6000 years ago its author termed light the flowing — the undular 
tion. " In the words of the ' Son of God/ and ' the Son of 
Man/ no less than in his works, with all their adaptation to the 
circumstances of the times and persons to whom they were origi- 
nally delivered, are things inexplicable — concealed germs of an 
infinite development, reserved for future ages to unfold. j| " To the 
man of learning and reflection, this progressive fullness and un- 
fathomable depth of the Scripture, is a most conclusive proof that 
it was dictated by him in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge. 

But the ignorant scoffers — the great majority — will mock on, and 
speak evil of the things they know not. Their mockery is founded 
on two assumptions, which they believe to be irrefutable : that the 
Sun is the only possible source of light to the earth ; and that it is 
impossible for the Sun to exist without illuminating the earth. 
Unless they can prove both these assumptions to be true, they can 

* Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, Sec. 19 — 23. 

f Amos, 8 : 8. 

% Jere. 46 : 7. Gen. 41 : 1 — 18. See Parkhurst's Hebrew Lexicon, sub yoce. 

J Neander. 

16 241 



26 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE 

not prove the Bible account of creation to be false, nor eveD show 
it to be impossible. Neither of these assumptions can possibly be 
proved true ; for none of them can explore the universe, to discover 
the sources of light, nor put the Sun through every possible experi- 
ment, to discover that his light is an inseparable quality. The 
only thing infidels can truly allege against the Bible account of 
the origin of light is, their ignorance of the process. The argument 
is simply this : " God could not cause light without sunshine, be- 
cause I don't know how he did it. Nor can I understand how the 
Sun shone on a dark earth ; therefore, it is impossible." 

These arguments from ignorance need no other answer than the 
questions, Do you know how the Sun shines at all ? Is your igno- 
rance the measure of God's wisdom ? , 

But I shall demonstrate the utter falsehood of both these assump- 
tions, by showing the actual existence of many sources of light 
besides the Sun, and the perfect possibility of the existence of the 
Sun without sunshine, and of sunshine without any light reaching 
the earth. Thus, both the alleged impossibilities upon which the 
argument against the truth of the Bible is based will be removed, 
and the gross ignorance of natural science displayed by professedly 
scientific scoffers at the Bible, exposed. 

Light, so far from being solely derived from the Sun, exists in, 
and can be educed from, almost any known substance. Even chil- 
dren are familiar with the light produced by the friction of two 
pieces of quartz ; and no one needs to be informed how light may 
be produced by the combustion of inflammable substances. But 
the number of these substances is far greater than is generally sup- 
posed, and light can be produced by processes to which we do not 
generally apply the idea of burning. Resins, wool, silks, wood, 
and all kinds of earths and alkalies, are capable of emitting light 
in suitable electrical conditions ; so that the surface of our earth 
may have been a source of light in past ages, as it even now is * 
near the poles and the equator, flashing its Aurora Borealis and 
Aurora Australis, and sending out its belts of Zodiacal light (which 
is now ascertained to be a telluric phenomenon, like Saturn's ringf ), 
far into the surrounding darkness. Further, the metallic bases 
of all the earths are highly inflammable, and a brilliant flame can 
be produced by the combustion even of water. All the metals can 

* Cosmos, yol. 1, p. 196. f Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1856. 

242 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 27 

be made to flash forth lightnings, under suitable electric and mag- 
netic excitements, and the crystals of several rocks give out light 
during the process of crystallization. Thousands of miles of the 
earth's surface must once have presented the lurid glow of a vast 
furnace of melted granite. Even at a far later era of its history, 
it may have shone with a luster little inferior to that of the Sun ; 
for lime — of which unknown thousands of miles of its strata consist 
— when subjected to a heat much less than that produced by con- 
tact with melted granite or lava, emits a brilliant white light, of 
such intensity that the eye cannot support its luster.* Even now, 
the copper color of the moon during an eclipse shows us that the 
earth is a source of light.t The mountains on the surface of Venus 
and the Moon, and the continents and oceans of Mars, attest the 
existence of upheaval and subsidence, and of volcanic fires, capable 
of producing such phenomena, and of course of sources of light in 
those planets, such as exist on the earth. We know, then, most 
certainly, that there are many other bodies capable of producing 
light besides the Sun. That God could command the light to shine 
out of darkness, and convert the very ocean into a magnificent illu- 
mination, the following facts clearly prove. " Capt. Bonnycastle, 
coming up the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the 7th of September, 1826, 
was roused by the mate of the vessel, in great alarm, from an un- 
usual appearance. It was a starlight night, when suddenly the 
sky became overcast, in the direction of the high land of Cornwallis 
County, and an instantaneous and intensely vivid light, resembling 
the Aurora, shot out of the hitherto gloomy and dark sea, on the lee 
bow, which was so brilliant that it lighted every thing distinctly, 
even to the mast-head. The light spread over the whole sea, be- 
tween the two shores, and the waves, which before had been tran- 
quil, now began to be agitated. Captain Bonnycastle describes 
the scene as that of a blazing sheet of awful and most brilliant light. 
A long and vivid line of light, superior in brightness to the parts 
of the sea not immediately near the vessel, showed the base of the 
high, frowning, and dark land abreast; the sky became lowering, 
and more intensely obscure. Long tortuous lines of light showed 
immense numbers of large fish, darting about as if in consterna- 
tion. The topsail yard and mizen boom were lighted by the 

* Johnson's Turner's Chemistry, § 160. 

f Cosmos, vol. 1, p. 196. Nicnoll's Solar System, 184. 

243 



28 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

glare, as if gas-lights had been burning directly below them ; and 
until just before day-break, at four o'clock, the most minute objects 
were distinctly visible." * 

The other assumption, that the Sun could not possibly have ex- 
isted without giving light to the earth, is contradicted by the most 
familiar facts. The earth and each of the planets might have 
been, and most probably were, surrounded by a dense atmosphere, 
through which the Sun's rays could not penetrate. It is not at all 
necessary to prove that such was the fact. I am only concerned to 
prove the possibility ; for the infidel's objection is founded on the 
presumed impossibility of the co-existence of a dark earth and a 
shining sun. Any person who has ever been in Pittsburg, Glasgow, 
or the manufacturing districts of England, and has seen how the 
smoke of even a hundred factory chimneys will shroud the heavens, 
can easily comprehend how a similar discharge, on a larger scale, 
from the thousands of primal volcanoes,! would cover the ea/th 
with the pall of darkness. By the eruption of a single volcano, 
in the island of Sumbawa, in 1815, the air was filled with ashes, 
from Java to Celebes, darkening an area of more than 200,000 
square miles ; and the darkness was so profound in Java, three 
hundred miles distant from the volcano, that nothing equal to it 
was ever witnessed in the darkest night. % Those who have wit- 
nessed the fogs raised on the Banks of Newfoundland, in the Gulf 
of St. Lawrence, and in the Bay of Fundy, by the mingling of cur- 
rents of water of slightly different temperatures, can be at no loss 
to conceive the density of the vapors produced by the boiling of the 
sea around and over the multitude of volcanoes || which have pro- 
duced the countless atolls of the Pacific, and by the vast upheavals 
of thousands of miles of heated rocks of the primary formations 
into the beds of primeval oceans. While such processes were in 
progress, it was impossible but that darkness should be upon the 
face of the deep.$ Even now, a slight change of atmospheric den- 
sity and temperature would vail the earth with darkness. We see 
this substantially done every time that God " covereth the light 
with clouds, and commandeth it not to shine by the cloud that 
cometh betwixt," although the Sun continues to shine with all his 



* Connection of Physical Sciences, 288. || Cosmos, vol. 1, p. 250. 

t Cosmos, vol. 1, p. 250. g Cosmos, vol. 1, pp. 198, 216. 

% LyelTs Principles of Geology, 465. 

244 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 29 

usual splendor. To understand how there may be day without 
sunshine, we need only conceive the whole earth temporarily en- 
veloped in the vapors of the unastronomical atmosphere of Peru, 
thus described by Humboldt : 

" A thick mist obscures the firmament in this region for many 
months, during the period called tiempo de la garua. Not a planet 
— not the most brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere — are 
visible. It is frequently almost impossible to distinguish the po- 
sition of the moon. If, by chance, the outline of the Sun's disc 
be visible during the day, it appears devoid of rays, as if seen 
through colored glasses. According to what modern geology has 
taught us to conjecture concerning the ancient history of our at- 
mosphere, its primitive condition in respect to its mixture and den- 
sity must have been unfavorable to the trajismission of light. When 
we consider the numerous processes which, in the primary world, 
may have led to the separation of the solids, fluids, and gases 
around the earth's surface, the thought involuntarily arises, how 
narrowly the human race escaped being surrounded with an tin- 
transparent atmosphere, which, though not greatly prejudicial to 
jsome classes of vegetation, would yet have completely vailed the 
whole of the starry canopy. All knowledge of the structure of the 
universe could then have been withheld from the enquiring spirit 
of man." * The Sun, then, may have shone with all his brilliancy, 
for thousands of years, and a single ray never have penetrated the 
darkness upon the face of the deep. 

But there is another well ascertained fact, which equally refutes 
the infidel's assumption. There is no necessary connection between 
the Sun and sunshine. The Sun may have existed for thousands 
of years as the center of the solar system, and the planets may have 
revolved around him, as they do now, while so far from shedding 
a single ray of light on any of them, he may have derived a feeble 
illumination from their beams. Modern science has discovered 
the astonishing fact, that at this moment the globe of the Sun 
is not a source of light to itself, much less to us ; that, in fact, 
light is no more connected with the Sun than with a candlestick ; 
and that the Bible description of the Sun as a light-bearer, ex- 
presses the results of the latest researches of Herschell, Encke, 
and Arago. 

* Cosmos, vol. 3, p. 139. 

245 



30 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

The Sun consists mainly of a dark nucleus, like the body of the 
earth, and other planetary globes, surrounded by two atmospheres, 
of enormous depths, the one nearest to him being cloudy and dense, 
like our atmosphere, while the loftier stratum consists of those 
dazzling phosphorescent zephyrs that bestow light and heat on so 
many surrounding spheres. This phosphorescent atmosphere, or 
photosphere, as it is called, is by no means inseparably attached to 
the surface of the nucleus, or in any degree stable, but is subject to 
extensive fluctuations, and the most violent commotions; being fre- 
quently swayed and whirled aside, laying bare the surface of the 
dark globe beneath, for thousands of miles, to the observation of 
astronomers, and even to the naked eye. So far from being neces- 
sarily a source of light to the universe, the Sun's light is but very 
faintly visible on his own globe. "We approach the question" 
(of the inhabitability of the Sun,) says Sir David Brewster, "with 
the certain knowledge that the Sun is not a red hot globe, but that 
its nucleus is a solid, opaque mass, receiving very little light and 
heat (only seven rays out of a thousand) from its luminous atmos- 
phere." Outside of this photosphere another gaseous, transparent 
atmosphere has been discovered.* 

Any one of these facts is fatal to the assumption, that the Sun 
could not exist without shining, and that his light must have neces- 
sarily been visible through the universe ever since the creation of 
the heavens and the earth.' His dark, solid nucleus may have ex- 
isted for millions of years, as the center of gravity, around which 
the solar system revolved, and have given out no more light or 
heat than it does this day, or than the dark suns do around which 
Procyon and Sirius now revolve. t His luminous photosphere may 
either not have existed at all, or its gases not have been inflamed 
or electrically excited into luminosity. No man can adduce the 
shadow of a proof that the Sun shone nine minutes before the first 
recorded observation— namely, that recorded by the Author of the 
Bible, in the first of Genesis. The Sun's outer atmosphere may 
have been as dense as his inner one : in which case this radiance 
of his photosphere would have been as effectually veiled as a gas 
lamp by a London fog. And the simple possibility of any of these 



* Nicholl's Solar System, 174. Herschell's Outlines, §389. More Worlds than One, 
98. Cosmos, vol. 4, p. 372. 
f Cosmos, vol. 3, p. 253. 

246 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 31 

events, or indeed of any contingency by -which the Sun could exist 
as a dark body, is quite sufficient to vindicate the Bible from the 
charge of contradicting the facts of science, and teaching impossi- 
bilities. But we will go further, and show that so far from light 
being an essential property of suns, it is a very variable attribute, 
and that in several cases suns have ceased, and others begun to 
shine, before our eyes. 

The fixed stars are self luminous bodies, similar to our Sun, only 
immensely distant from us. Their numbers, magnitudes, and 
places, are known and recorded. But new stars have frequently 
flashed into view, where none were previously seen to exist ; and 
others have gradually grown dim and disappeared, without chang- 
ing their place ; and a few, which had disappeared, have re-ap- 
peared in the same spot they formerly occupied ; while others have 
changed their color since the era of astronomical observation. In 
short, there is no permanence in the heavens, any more than on 
the earth; but a perpetual progress and change is the destiny of 
suns and stars, of which the most conspicuous indication is the 
variability of their powers of giving light, of which I shall trans- 
cribe a few instances. 

"On the 11th of November, 1572, as the illustrious Danish as- 
tronomer, Tycho, was walking through the fields, he was astonished 
to observe a new star in the constellation Cassiopea, beaming with a 
radiance quite unwonted in that part of the heavens. Suspecting 
some delusion about his eyes, he went to a group of peasants, to 
ascertain if they saw it, and found them gazing at it with as much 
astonishment as himself. He went to his instrument, and fixed its 
place, from which it never after appeared to deviate. For some 
time it increased in brightness — greatly surpassed Sirius in luster, 
and even Jupiter. It was seen by good eyes in the day time : a 
thing which happens only to Venus, under very favorable circum- 
stances ; and at night it pierced through clouds which obscured the 
rest of the stars. After reaching its fullest brightness, it again 
diminished, passed through all degrees of visible magnitude, as- 
suming in succession the hues of a dying conflagration, and then 
finally disappeared." " It is impossible to imagine any thing more 
tremendous than a conflagration that could be visible at such a 
distance." * 

Astronomers now recognize a class of such Temporary Stars, 

* Nicholl's Solar System, 188. Connection of Physical Sciences, 363. 

247 



32 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE.' 

which have appeared from time to time in different parts of the 
heavens, blazing forth with extraordinary luster, and after remain- 
ing awhile, apparently immovable, have died away, and left no 
trace.* Twenty-one of such appearances of new suns are on 
record.f 

Still further, many familiar suns have ceased to shine. "Ona 
careful re-examination of the heavens, many stars are found to be 
missing." J " There are many well authenticated cases of the dis-r 
appearance of old stars, whose places had been fixed with a degree 
of certainty not to be doubted. In October, 1781, Sir William Her- 
schell observed a star, No. 55 in Flamstead's Catalogue, in the con- 
stellation Hercules. In 1790 the same star was observed by the 
same astronomer, but since that time no search has been able to 
detect it. The stars 80 and 81 of the same catalogue, both of the 
fourth magnitude, have likewise disappeared. In May, 1828, Sir 
John Herschell missed the star numbered 42, in the constellation 
Virgo, which has never since been seen. Examples might be mul- 
tiplied, but it is unnecessary." § 

The demonstration of the variableness of the light-giving power 
of suns is completed by the phenomena of the class emphatically 
called variable stars ; though the best astronomers are now agreed 
that variability, and not uniformity, in the emission of light, is the 
general character of the stars. || But the variations which occur 
before our eyes impress us more deeply than those which require 
centuries for their completion. Sir John Herschell has observed 
and graphically described one such instance of variation of light. 

" The star Eta Argus has always hitherto been regarded as a 
star of the second magnitude ; and I never had reason to regard it 
as variable. In November, 1837, I saw it, as usual. Judge of my 
surprise to find, on the 16th of December, that it liad suddenly be- 
come a star of the first magnitude, and almost equal to Rigel. It 
continued to increase. Rigel is now not to be compared with it. 
It exceeds Arcturus, and is very near equal to Alpha Centauri, 
being, at the moment I write, the fourth star in the heavens, in the 
order of brightness.^ It has since passed through several varia- 
tionsof luster. Humboldt gives a catalogue of twenty-four of such 
stars, whose variations have been recorded." 

* Herschell's Outlines, § 827. \ Mitchell's Planetary and Stellar Worlds, 294. 

t Cosmos, vol. 8, p. 210. \ Cosmos, vol. 3, p. 253. 

% Herschell's Outlines, g 832. \ Astronomical Observations, 351. 

248 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 33 

"A strange field of speculation is opened by this phenomenon. 
Here we have a star fitfully variable to an astonishing extent, and 
whose fluctuations are spread over centuries, apparently in no 
settled period, and with no regularity of progression. What origin 
can we ascribe to these sudden flashes and relapses ? What con- 
clusions are we to draw as to the comfort or habitability of a sys- 
tem depending for its supply of light and heat on such an uncertain 
source ? Speculations of this kind can hardly be termed visionary, 
when we consider that, from what has been before said, we are 
compelled to admit a community of nature between the fixed stars 
and our own Sun ; and when we reflect, that geology testifies to the 
fact of extensive changes having taken place, at epochs of the most 
remote antiquity, in the climate and temperature of our globe: 
changes difficult to reconcile with the operation of secondary 
causes, such as a different distribution of sea and land, but which 
would find an easy and natural explanation in a slow variation of 
the supply of light and heat afforded by the Sun himself."* "I 
cannot otherwise understand alterations of heat and cold so exten- 
sive as at one period to have clothed high northern latitudes with 
a more than tropical luxuriance of vegetation, and at another to 
have buried vast tracts of Europe, now enjoying a genial climate, 
and smiling with fertility, under a glacier crust of enormous thick- 
ness. Such changes seem to point to causes more powerful than 
the mere local distribution of land and water can well be supposed 
to have been. In the slow secular variations of our supply of light 
and heat from the Sun, which, in the immensity of time, may have 
gone to any extent, and succeeded each other in any order, without 
violating the analogy of siderial phenomena which we know to have 
taken place, we have a cause, not indeed established as a fact, but 
readily admissible as something beyond a bare possibility, fully 
adequate to the utmost requirements of geology. A change of 
half a magnitude on the luster of our Sun, regarded as a fixed star, 
spread over successive geological epochs — now progressive, now 
receding, now stationary — is what no astronomer would now hesi- 
tate to admit as a perfectly reasonable and not improbable supposi- 
tion.^ 

The most eminent astronomers are perfectly unanimous in their 
deductions from these facts. They regard variability as the gen- 

* Outlines, § 830. f Astronomical Observations, 351. 

249 



34 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

eral characteristic of suns and stars, our own Sun not excepted. 
"We are led, says Humboldt, "by analogy to infer, that as the fixed 
stars universally have not merely an apparent, but a real motion 
of their own, so their surfaces or luminous atmospheres are gen- 
erally subject to those changes (in their "light process ") which 
recur, in the great majority, in extremely long, and therefore un- 
measured, and probably undeterminable periods, or which, in a 
few, recur without being periodical, as it were, by a sudden revo- 
lution, either for a longer or a shorter time." And he asks, Why 
sJwuld our Sun differ from other suns f 

In reference to the extinction of suns, he says : " What we no 
longer see is not necessarily annihilated. It is merely the transi- 
tion of matter into new forms — into combinations which are subject 
to new processes. Dark cosmical bodies may, by a renewed process 
of light, again become luminous." * In confirmation of the fact 
adduced in support of this view, by La Place, " that those stars 
which have become invisible, after having surpassed Jupiter in 
brilliancy, have not changed their place during the time they con- 
tinued visible," he adds, "The luminous process has simply ceased. 
Bessel asserts! that, "No reason exists for considering luminosity 
an essential property of these bodies." And Nicholl sums up the 
matter in the following emphatic words: "No more is light inhe- 
rent in the Sun than in Tycho's vanished star; and with it and 
other orbs, a time may come when, through the consent of all the 
powers of nature, he shall cease to be required to shine. The 
womb which contains the Future is that which bore the Past." J 

Here, then, we behold astronomy presenting to our observation 
facts and processes so similar to those which revelation presents to 
our faith, that all those men who are most profoundly versed in her 
lore, reasoning solely from the facts of science, and without any 
reference to the Bible, unanimously conclude that there was such a 
state of darkness and confusion before our era as the Bible declares 
— that its causes were most probably such as the Bible implies — 
and that the sudden illuminating of dark bodies, and their extinc- 
tion, and even re-illumination, are facts so perfectly well authenti- 
cated as matters of observation in regard to other suns, that no 
reasonable man can hesitate to believe any credible assurance that 
our Sun has passed through such a process. With what feelings, 

* Cosmos, vol. 3, p. 222-232. f Cosmos, vol. 3, p. 246. t Solar System, 190. 

250 



DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 35 

then, are we to regard the ignorance and brazen-faced impudence 
of men who, in defiance of the most common facts, and in contra- 
diction to the demonstrations of science, blaspheme the God of 
truth as a teacher of falsehood, because he speaks of light distinct 
from that of the Sun? Surely, such men are those whom he de- 
scribes as "having the understanding darkened, being alienated 
from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them, because 
of the blindness of their hearts. In whom the God of this world 
hath blinded the minds of them that believe not." * 

These- facts of the sudden kindling of stars, their gradual passage 
through all the hues of a dying conflagration, and their final ex- 
tinction and present blackness of darkness, are facts of fearful 
omen to the enemies of God. They are the original threatenings 
of Heaven, whence the fearful language of Bible warning is de- 
rived. They attest its truth, and illustrate its import. 

The favorite theory of the unbeliever is the uniformity of nature. 
"Where," says he, "is the promise of Christ's coming to judgment ; 
for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were 
since the beginning of the world?" But the telescope dispels the 
illusion, exhibits the course of nature as a succession of catastro- 
phes, displays the conflagration of other worlds, and the extinction 
of their suns, before our eyes, and asks, Why should our Sun differ 
from other suns? It is not the preacher, but the philosopher, who 
has turned prophet, when — looking back on the period when the 
Siberian elephant and rhinoceros were frozen amidst their native 
jungle, and icebergs visited the plains of India — he proclaims, "The 
womb that bore the Past contai?is the Future." 

The threatenings of God's word are invested with a mantle of 
terrible literality by the facts we have been contemplating. Raised 
at the day of resurrection, in these bodies, and with these senses, 
and this capability of rejoicing in the light, and shuddering and 
pining amidst outward gloom, physical darkness will be the terri- 
ble prison of those who chose darkness rather than light, because 
their deeds were evil. The Father of Lights shall withdraw his 
blessed influences from the hearts, the dwellings, the eyes, of those 
who say to him, " Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge 
of thy ways." The Sun shall cease to vivify God's corn, and wine, 
and oil, which ungodly men consume upon their lusts. The Moon 

shall cease to shine upon the robber's toil, and the Stars to illumine 
« __ _ ____________ 

251 



36 DAYLIGHT BEFORE SUNRISE. 

the adulterer's path. The light of Heaven shall cease to gild the 
field of carnage, where men perform the work of Hell. In the very 
midst of your worldliness and business, Unbeliever, when you are 
in all the engrossment of buying and selling, and planting and 
building, and marrying and giving in marriage, without warning 
or expectation, " the Sun shall go down at noon, and the stars shall 
be darkened in the clear day." As in the warning and example 
given to the enemies of the Lord in Egypt, thick darkness, that 
may be felt, shall wind its inevitable chains around you, preventing 
your escape from the judgment of the great day, and giving you a 
fearful foretaste of that " blackness of darkness for ever " of which 
you are now forewarned in the Word of Truth. 

" The Sun shall be darkened, and the Moon shall not give her 
light, 

" And the stars shall fall from the heavens, 

" And the powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; 

"And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in the 
heavens, 

"And then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn ; 

"And they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of 
heaven, 

"With power and great glory." 

" Cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness ; 

" There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." 

" Hear ye, and give ear ; be not proud, 

" For the Lord hath spoken. 

" Give glory to the Lord, your God, 

" Before he cause darkness, 

" And before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains ; 

" And while ye look for light, 

" He turn it into the shadow of death, 

"And make it gross darkness." 

" I am the light of the world ; 

" He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, 

" But shall have the light of life." * 

■» ' ■ '-■- ■■■ ■ ■■■ — — - ■■ ■■ -■ ■' ' — ' ■ 

* Matthew, 24 : 29. John, 8 : 12. Jere. 13 : 15. Matt. 22 : 13, aud 25 : 30. 



No. 33. 

TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

No kind of knowledge is more useful to man than the knowledge 
of his own ignorance ; and no instrument has done more to give 
him such knowledge than the telescope. Faith is the believing of 
facts we do not know, upon the word of one who does. If any one 
knows every thing, or thinks he does, he can have no faith. A 
deep conviction of our own ignorance is, therefore, indispensable 
to faith. The telescope gives us this conviction, in two ways. It 
shows us that we see a great many things we do not perceive, tells 
us the size and the distances of those little sparks that adorn the 
sky, and leads us to reason out their true relations to our earth. 
Then it tells us that what we see is little of what is to be seen ; 
that our knowledge is but a drop from the great ocean — a rush- 
light, sparkling in the vast darkness of the unknown. It tells us 
that we do not see right, and that we do not see far; and that 
there may be things, both in heaven and earth, not dreamed of in 
our philosophy. Further, it confirms the Bible testimony concern- 
ing the facts of its own province, by removing all improbability 
from some of its most wonderful narratives, attesting the accuracy 
of its language, and confirming, by some of its most recent dis- 
coveries, the truth of its statements. Our space will only allow us 
to select five illustrations of the tendency of faith in the telescope, 
to produce faith in the Bible. 

1. One of the latest astronomical discoveries throws light upon 
one of the most ancient scientific allusions of the Bible, and one 
which has perplexed both commentators and geologists : that which 
hints at the second causes of the deluge. Not that it is at all need- 
ful for us to be able to tell where God Almighty procured the water 
to drown the ungodly sinners of the old world, before we believe 
his word that he did so ; unless, indeed, somebody has explored 
the universe, and knows that there is not water enough in it for 
that purpose, or that it is so far away that he could not fetch it ; 
for, as to the fact itself, geology assures us that all the dry land on 
earth has been drowned, not only once, but many times. It is not 
the province of the commentator, but of the geologist, to account 

for the phenomenon. 

253 



2 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

Several solutions of the difficulty of finding water enough for the 
purpose have been proposed. One of these supposes that, as the 
earth is known by its density not to be solid, some of its internal 
caverns are filled with water, which, when heated by neighboring 
volcanic fires, would expand one twenty-third of its bulk, and flow 
out, and raise the ocean. When the volcanic fire was burnt out, 
and the water cooled, it would of course contract to its former 
dimensions, and the ocean recede. These caverns they suppose to 
be meant by "the fountains of the great deep," in Genesis vii: 11. 

But the Bible describes another, and plainly a very important 
source of the waters of the deluge, in the rain which fell for forty 
days and forty nights. At present, all the water in our atmosphere 
comes from the sea, by evaporation ; and the quantity is too insig- 
nificant to cover the globe to any considerable depth. Divines 
and philosophers were perplexed to give any adequate explanation 
of this language, and considered it simply as Noah's description of 
the appearance of things as viewed from the ark, rather than an 
accurate explanation of the actual causes of the deluge. Now, it 
is certainly true, that the Bible does describe things as they appear 
to men. It is, however, beginning to be discovered, that these pop- 
ular appearances are far more closely connected with philosophical 
reality than a self-sufficient pedantry will allow. Our purblind 
astronomy and prattling geology may be as inadequate to expound 
the mysteries of the Bible philosophy, as was the incoherent science 
of Strabo and Ptolemy. The experience of another planet, now 
transacting before our eyes, admonishes us not to limit the re- 
sources of Omnipotence by our narrow experience, or to suppose 
that our young science has catalogued all the weapons in the arse- 
nal of the Almighty. 

The planet Saturn is surrounded by a revolving belt, consisting 
of several distinct rings, containing an area a hundred and forty- 
six times greater than the surface of our globe, with a thickness of 
a hundred miles. From mechanical considerations it had been 
proved that these rings could not be of a uniform thickness all 
around, else when a majority of his seven moons were on the same 
side, the attraction would draw them in upon him, on the opposite 
side ; and once attracted to his surface, they could never get loose 
again, if they were solid.* It was next ascertained that the mo- 
» 1 1 ■ < 

* Kendall's Uranography, 268. 

254 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 3 

tions of the moons and of the rings were such, that if the inequality 
was always in the same place, the same result must follow ; so that 
the ring must be capable of changing its thickness, according to 
circumstances. It must be either composed of an immense number 
of small solid bodies, capable of shifting freely about among them- 
selves, or else be fluid. Finally, it has been demonstrated that this 
last is the fact ; that the density of this celestial ocean is nearly 
that of water ; and that the inner portion, at least, is so transpa- 
rent, that the planet has been seen through it.* " The ring of 
Saturn is, then, a stream or streams of fluid, rather denser than 
water, flowing about the primary." t The extraordinary fact, 
which shows us how God can deluge a planet when he pleases, 
I give not in the words of a divine, but of a philosopher, whose 
thoughtless illustration of scripture is all the more valuable, that 
it is evidently unintentional. 

" M. Otto Struve, Mr. Bond, and Sir David Brewster, are agreed 
that Saturn's third ring is fluid, that it is not of very recent for- 
mation, and that it is not subject to rapid change. And they have 
come to the extraordinary conclusion, that the inner border of the 
ring has, since the day of Huygens, been gradually approaching to 
the body of Saturn, and that we may expect, sooner or later — per- 
haps in some dozen years — to see the rings united with the body 
of the planet. With this deluge impending, Saturn would scarcely 
he a very eligible residence for men, whatever it might be for dol- 
phins." % 

Knowing, as we most certainly do, that the fluid envelopes of 
our own planet were once exceedingly different from the present, $ 
here is a possibility quite sufficient to stop the mouth of the scoffer. 
Let him show that God did not, or prove that he could not, suspend 
a similar series of oceans over the earth, or cease to pronounce a 
universal deluge impossible. 

2. That sublime ode, in which Deborah describes the stars in 
their courses as fighting against Sisera, || has been rescued from 
the grasp of modern scoffers and impostors, by the progress of 
astronomy. By both these classes has it been alleged as lending 
its support to the delusions of judicial astrology ; the one class 
desiring to damage the Bible as a teacher of superstition, and the 



* Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1856, p. 380. 1 1»-. 1852 > P- 376 - 

% lb., 1856, p. 377. \ Cosmos, vol. 1, pp. 198-215. \ Judges, 5. 

255 



4 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

other to help their trade by pleading its authority. The Bible 
reader will doubtless be greatly surprised to hear it asserted, that 
the Bible lends its sanction to this antiquated, and, as he thinks, 
exploded superstition. He knows how expressly the Bible forbids 
God's people to have any thing to do with it, or with its heathenish 
professors. " Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the hea- 
then, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven, for the heathen 
are dismayed at them." * And they will be still more surprised 
to learn, that those who object against the Bible, that it ascribes 
a controlling influence to the stars, are firm believers in Reichen- 
bach's discovery of odyle : an influence from the heavenly bodies 
so spiritual and powerful, that they imagine it able to govern the 
world, instead of God Almighty.f 

The passage thus variously abused is a description, in highly 
poetic strains, of the battle between the troops of Israel and those 
of Sisera: of the defeat of the latter, and of an earthquake and 
tempest, which completed the destruction of his exhausted troops. 
The glory of the victory is wholly ascribed to the Lord God of 
Israel ; while the rain, the thunder, lightning, swollen river, and 
"the stars in their courses," are all described, in their subordinate 
places, as only his instruments — the weapons of his arsenal. 

" Lord, when thou wentest out of Seir, 

* Jeremiah, 10. 

f Some of my readers may deem any notice of such a subject, in the nineteenth cen- 
tury, entirely unnecessary ; but having lived for some years within sight of the dwell- 
ing of a woman who publicly advertised herself in the newspapers as a professor of 
astrology, and seen the continual flow of troubled minds to the promised light — the 
humble serving-girl stealing up the side entrance, and the princely chariot discharg- 
ing its willing dupes at the door, and rolling hastily away, to await them at the corner 
—I know of a certainty that folly is not yet dead. There are women — aye, and men 
too — who. are above the folly of reading the Bible, but just wise enough to pay five 
dollars for, and spend hours in the study of, an uncouth astrological picture, repre- 
senting a collocation of the stars, which was never witnessed by any astronomer-— 
men who would not give way to the superstition of supposing that their destiny was 
regulated by the will of Almighty God, yet believe that every living creature's fate is 
regulated by the aspect of the stars at the hour of his nativity ; the same stars always 
causing the same period of life and mode of death ; though every day's experience 
testifies the contrary. The same stars presided over the birth of the poor soldier, who 
perished in an instant at Austerlitz ; of his Imperial Master, who pined for years in 
St. Helena; of the old gentleman who died in his own bed, of gout; and of the batch 
of puppies, whereof old Towser was the only surviving representative, the other nine 
having found their fate in the horse-pond, in defiance of the controlling stars. They 
were all born at the same hour, and under the same auspices, and destined to the 
same fate, by the laws of astrology. 

256 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 5 

" When thou marchedst out of the field of Edom, 

" The earth trembled, and the heavens dropped, 

" The clouds also dropped down water ; 

" The mountains also melted from before the Lord, 

" Even that Sinai, from before the Lord God of Israel/' 

Then, after describing the battle, she alludes to the celestial 
artillery, and to the effects of the storm in swelling the river, and 
sweeping away the fugitives who had sought the fords : 

" They fought from heaven ; 

" The stars in their courses fought against Sisera; 

"The river Kishon swept them away: 

" That ancient river, the river Kishon." * 

After describing some further particulars, the hymn concludes 
with an allusion to the clearing away of the tempest, and the ap- 
pearance of the unclouded Sun over the field of victory : 

"So let all thine enemies perish, 0, Lord ; 

" But let them that love thee be as the Sun, when he goeth forth 
in his might." 

"Where is there the least allusion here to any controlling influ- 
ence of the stars ? You might just as well say, " The Bible as- 
cribes a controlling influence over the destinies of men, to the river 
Kishon ;" for they are both spoken of, in the same language, as in- 
struments in God's hand for the destruction of his enemies. 

But it is objected, " Even by this explanation you have the Bible 
representing the stars as causing the rain." Not so fast. If a 
man were very ignorant, and had never heard of any thing falling 
from the sky but rain, he might think so. And if the Bible did 
attribute to the stars some such influence over the vapors of the 
atmosphere, as experience shows the moon to possess over the 
ocean, are you able to demonstrate its absurdity ? 

Deborah, however, when she sang of the stars in their courses 
fighting against Sisera, was describing a phenomenon very differ- 
ent from a fall of rain — was, in fact, describing a fall of aerolites 
upon the army of Sisera. Multitudes of stones have fallen from 
the sky, and not less than five hundred such falls are recorded. 

"On Sept. 1st, 1814, a few minutes before midday, while the sky 
was perfectly serene, a violent detonation was heard in the depart- 
ment of the Lot and Garonne. This was followed by three or four 

* Judges, 5th ch. 

17 257 



6 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

others, and finally by a rolling noise, at first resembling a dis- 
charge of musketry, afterwards the rumbling of carriages, and 
lastly that of a large building falling down. Stones were imme- 
diately after precipitated to the ground, some of which weighed 
eighteen pounds, and sunk into a compact soil, to the depth of 
eight or nine inches ; and one of them rebounded three or four feet 
from the ground." 

" A great shower of stones fell at Barbatan, near Roquefort, in 
the vicinity of Bordeaux, on July 24th, 1790. A mass fifteen 
inches in diameter penetrated a hut and killed a herdsman and 
bullock. Some of the stones weighed twenty-five pounds, and 
others thirty pounds." 

" In July, 1810, a large ball of fire fell from the clouds, at Sha- 
habad, which burned five villages, destroyed the crops, and killed 
several men and women." * 

Astronomers are perfectly agreed as to the character of these 
masses, and the source whence they come. "It appears from re- 
cent astronomical observations that the Sun numbers among his 
attendants not only planets, asteroids, and comets, but also im- 
mense multitudes of meteoric stones and shooting stars." f Aero- 
lites are, then, really stars. They are composed of materials 
similar to those of our earth : the only other star whose materials 
we can compare with them. They have a proper motion around 
the Sun, in orbits distinct from that of the earth. They are capa- 
ble of emitting the most brilliant light, in favorable circumstances. 
Some of them are as large as the asteroids. One, of 600,000 tons 
weight, passed within 25 miles of the earth, at the rate of 20 miles 
a second. A fragment of it reached the earth. J " That aerolites 
were called stars by the ancients, is indisputable. Indeed, Anaxa- 
goras considered the stars to be only stony masses, torn from the 
earth by the violence of rotation. Democritus tells us. that invisible 
dark masses of stone move with the visible stars, and remain on 
that account unknown, but sometimes fall upon the earth, and are 
extinguished, as happened with the stony star which fell near 
Aegos Potamos.g 

* Dick's Celestial Scenery, p. 57, Applegate's edition, where many such instances are 
related. 

f Vaughn's Eeport to the American Association for the advancement of Science, in 
Annual of Scientific Discovery for 1855, p. 364. 

% Somerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, 382. 

§ Cosmos, vol. 1, p. 122 ; vol. 4, p. 569. 
258 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 7 

When Deborah, therefore, describes the stars in their courses as 
fighting against Sisera, it is an utterly unfounded assumption to 
suppose that she has any allusion to the baseless fancies of an as- 
trology every-where condemned by the religion she professed, 
when a simple and natural explanation is afforded by the fact, that 
stars do fall from the heavens to the earth, and that they do so in 
their courses, and just by reason of their orbital motion ; and that 
the ancients both knew the fact, and gave the right name to those 
bodies. Let no reasonable man delude himself with the notion that 
God has no weapons more formidable than the dotings of astrology, 
till he has taken a view of the arsenals of God's artillery, which he 
has treasured up against the day of battle and of war. 

Here it may be well to notice the illustration which the remark- 
able showers of November meteors, particularly those of Novem- 
ber, 1833, shed upon several much ridiculed texts of scripture. 
Scientific observation has fully confirmed and illustrated the scien- 
tific accuracy of the Bible in such expressions as, " the stars shall 
fall from heaven ;" " there fell a great star from heaven, burning 
as it were a lamp •" " and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, 
even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs, when she is shaken of 
a mighty wind.' ; Whatever political or ecclesiastical events these 
symbols may signify, there can be no question, now, that the as- 
tronomical phenomenon used to prefigure them is correctly de- 
scribed in the Bible. Most of my readers have seen some of these 
remarkable exhibitions ; but for the sake of those who have not, I 
give a brief account of one. " By much the most splendid mete- 
oric shower on record, began at nine o'clock, on the evening of the 
12th of November, 1833, and lasted till sunrise next morning. It 
extended from Niagara, and the northern lakes of America, to the 
south of Jamaica, and from 61° of longitude, in the Atlantic, to 
100° of longitude in Central Mexico. Shooting stars and meteors 
of the apparent size of Jupiter, Venus, and even the full mogn, 
darted in myriads towards the horizon, as if every star in the 
heavens had darted from their spheres." They are described as 
having been as frequent as the flakes of snow in a snow-storm, and 
to have been seen with equal brilliancy over the greater part of 
the continent of North America.* 

The source whence these meteors proceed is distinctly ascer- 

* Connection of the Physical Sciences, 383. 

259 



8 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

tained to be, as was already remarked with regard to the aerolites, 
a belt of small planetoids, revolving around the Sun in a little less 
than a year, and in an orbit intersecting that of the earth, at such 
an angle, that every thirty-three years, or thereabouts, the earth 
meets the full tide on the 12th of November. These meteors are 
true and proper stars. "All the observations made during the 
year 1853 agree with those of previous years, and confirm what 
may be regarded as sufficiently well established : the cosmical 
origin of shooting stars." * 

3. The language of the Bible with respect to tlie circuit of the 
Sun is found to have anticipated one of the most sublime discove- 
ries of modern astronomy. True to the reality, as well as to the 
appearance of things, it is scientifically correct, without becoming 
popularly unintelligible. 

There is a class of aspirants to gentility who refuse to recognize 
any person not dressed in the style which they suppose fashionable 
among the higher classes. A Glasgow butcher's wife, in the High- 
lands, attired in all the magnificence of her satins, laces, and jew- 
elry, returned the courteous salute of the little woman in the ging- 
ham dress and gray shawl with a contemptuous toss of the head, 
and flounced past, to learn, to her great mortification, that she had 
missed an opportunity of forming an acquaintance with the Queen. 
So a large class of pretenders to science refuse to become acquainted 
with Bible truth, because it is not shrouded in the technicalities of 
science, but displays itself in the plain speech of the common 
people to whom it was given. They will have it, that because its 
author used common language, it was because he could not afford 
any other ; and as he did not contradict every vulgar error believed 
by the people to whom he spoke, it was because he knew no better; 
and because the Hebrews knew nothing of modern discoveries 
in astronomy, geology, and the other sciences, and the Bible does 
not contain lectures on these subjects, the God of the Hebrews 
must have been equally ignorant, and the Bible consequently be- 
neath the notice of a philosopher. 

You will hear such persons most pertinaciously assert, that 
Moses believed all the absurdities of the Ptolemaic astronomy: 
that the earth is the immovable center, around which revolve the 
crystal sphere of the firmament, and the Sun, and Moon, and stars, 

* Annual of Scientific Discovery, 1854, p. 361. 

260 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 9 

which are attached to it, after the manner of lamps to a ceiling ; 
and that he, and the world generally in his day, had not emerged 
from the grossest barbarism and ignorance of all matters of natu- 
ral science. Yet these very people will probably tell you, in the 
same conversation, of the wonderful astronomical observations 
made by the Egyptians, ten thousand years before the days of 
Adam ! So beautiful is the consistency of infidel science. But 
when you enquire into the source of their knowledge of the philo- 
sophy of the ancients, you discover that they did not draw it from 
the writings of Moses, of which they betray the grossest ignorance, 
nor of any one who lived within a thousand years of Moses' time. 
Voltaire is their authority for all such matters. He transferred 
to the early Asiatics all the absurdities of the later Greek philoso- 
phers, and would have us believe that Moses, who wrote before 
these Greeks had learned to read, was indebted to them for his 
philosophy. Of the learning of the ancient patriarchs Voltaire 
does not tell them much, for a satisfactory reason. 

Yet it might not have required much learning to infer, that the 
eyes, and ears, and nerves of men who lived ten times as long as 
we can, must have been more perfect than ours ; that a man who 
could observe nature with such eyes, under a sky where Stoddart 
now sees the ring of Saturn, the crescent of Venus, and the moons 
of Jupiter, with the naked eye,* and continue his observations for 
eight hundred years, would certainly acquire a better knowledge 
of the appearance of things than any number of generations of 
short-lived men, called away by death before they have well learned 
how to observe, and able only to leave the shell of their discoveries 
to their successors ; that unless we have some good reason for be- 
lieving that the mind of man was greatly inferior, before ihe flood, 
to what it now is, the antediluvians must have made a progress in 
the knowledge of the physical sciences, during the three thousand 
one hundred and fifty-five years which elapsed from the creation to 
the deluge, much greater than the nations of Europe have effected 
since they began to learn their A, B, C, about the same number of 
years ago ; and that though Noah and his sons might not have pre- 
served all the learning of their drowned contemporaries, they would 
still have enough to preserve them from the reproach of ignorance 
and barbarism ; at least until their sons have succeeded in building 

* Letter to Herschell, from Oroomiah, in Persia— Annual of Scientific Discovery, 
1854, p. 367. 

261 



10 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

a larger ship than the ark, or a city which would not look con- 
temptible in the suburbs of Babylon. 

"When we know that the Chaldeans taught the Egyptians the 
expansive power of steam, and the induction of electricity by 
pointed conductors; — that from the most remote antiquity the 
Chinese were acquainted with decimal fractions, electro-magnetism, 
the mariner's compass, and the art of making glass ; — that lenses 
have been found in the ruins of Nineveh, and that an artificial cur- 
rency was in circulation in the first cities built after the flood;* — 
that astronomical observations were made in China, with so much 
accuracy, from the deluge till the days of Yau, B. C, 2357, that 
the necessary intercalations were made for harmonizing the solar 
with the lunar year, and fixing the true period of 365 J days ; — and 
that similar observations were conducted to a like result within a 
few years of the same remote period, in Babylon ; — if he does not 
conclude that the world may have forgotten as much ancient lore 
during eighteen hundred years of idolatrous barbarism before the 
coming of Christ, as it has learned in the same number since — will, 
at least, satisfy himself that the ancient patriarchs were not igno- 
rant savages. f "Whole nations," says La Place, "have been 
swept from the earth, with their languages, arts, and sciences, 
leaving but confused masses of ruins to mark the place where 
mighty cities stood. Their history, with a few doubtful traditions, 
has perished ; but the perfection of their astronomical observations 
marks their high antiquity , fixes the periods of their existence, and 
proves that even at that early time they must have made consider- 
able progress in science." t The infidel theory, that the first men 
were savages, is a pure fiction, refuted by every known fact of 
their history. 

That, however, is not the matter under discussion. We are not 
enquiring, now, what Moses and the prophets thought, but what 
the author of the Bible told them to say. The scribe writes as his 

* " These tablets (of unbaked clay, with inscriptions, found in the tombs of Erech, 
the city of Nimrod — Gen. 10: 10 — and deciphered by Rawiinson,) were, in point of 
fact, the equivalent of our bank notes, and prove that a system of artificial currency 
prevailed in Babylon and Persia at an unprecedentedly early age : centuries before 
the introduction of paper and writing. 

Rawiinson, in News of the Churches, February, 1857. p. 50. 

f Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Egyptians, vol. 3, p. 106 ; Cosmos, vol. 1, 
pp. 173, 1S2 ; Chinese Expository, v. 9, p. 573; Williams' Middle Kingdom, vol. 2, p. 147. 

J Connection of Physical Sciences, 82. 

262 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 11 

employer dictates. " I will put my words in thy mouth," said God 
to Jeremiah. " My tongue is as the pen of a ready writer," said 
David. The prophets began, not with "Thus saith Isaiah,'' but 
" Thus saith the Lord." Unless the Word of God was utterly dif- 
ferent from all his other works, it must transcend the comprehen- 
sion of man in some respects. The profoundest philosopher is as 
ignorant of the cause of the vegetation of wheat, as the mower who 
cuts it down ; but their ignorance of the mysteries of organic force 
is no reason why the one may not harvest, and the other eat and 
live. Just so God's prophets conveyed precious mysteries to the 
Church, of the full import of which they themselves were ignorant ; 
even as Daniel heard but understood not ; and the prophets to 
whom it was revealed that they did not minister to themselves, but 
to us, enquired and searched diligently into the meaning of their 
own prophecies ; which meaning, nevertheless, continued hid for 
ages and generations.* If the prophets of the old economy might 
be ignorant of the privileges of the gospel day, of which they 
prophesied, at God's dictation, they might very well be ignorant, 
also, of the philosophy of creation, and yet write a true account of 
the facts, from his mouth. 

Let us suppose, then, that the ancient Hebrews and their 
prophets were, if not quite as ignorant of natural science as 
modern infidels are pleased to represent them, yet unacquainted 
with the discoveries of Herschell and Newton ; and, as a necessary 
consequence, that their language was the adequate medium of 
conveying their imperfect ideas, containing none of the technicali- 
ties invented by philosophers to mark modern scientific discoveries ; 
and that God desired to convey to them some religious instruction, 
through the medium of language. Must we suppose it indispen- 
sable for this purpose that he should use strange words, and scien- 
tific phrases, the meaning of which would not be discovered for 
thirty-three hundred years? Could not Dr. Alexander write a 
sabbath-school book, without filling it full of such phrases as 
"right ascension," "declination," "precession of the equinoxes," 
" radius vector," and the like ? Or, if some wiseacre did prepare 
such a book, would it be very useful to children ? Perhaps even 
we, learned philosophers of the nineteenth century, are not out of 
school yet. How many discoveries are yet to be made in all the 



* Dan, 12: 8; 1 Pet. 1:10; Eph.l;3. 

263 



12 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

sciences : discoveries which will doubtless render our fancied per- 
fection as utterly childish to the philosophers of a thousand years 
hence, as the astronomy of the Greeks seems to us; and demand 
the use of technical language, which would be as unintelligible to 
us as our scientific nomenclature would have been to Aristotle. 
If God may not use popular speech in speaking to the people of 
any given period, but must needs speak the technical language of 
perfect science, — and if science is now, and always will be, of ne- 
cessity, imperfect, — we are led to the sage conclusion, that every 
revelation from God to man must always be unintelligible ! 

Does it necessarily follow, that because the author of the Bible 
uses the common phrases, "sun rising," and "sun setting," in a 
popular treatise upon religion, that therefore he was ignorant of 
the rotation of the earth, and intended to teach that the Sun re- 
volved around it? He is certainly under no more obligation to 
depart from the common language of mankind, and introduce the 
technicalities of science into such a discourse, than mankind in 
general, and our objectors in particular, are to do the like in their 
common conversation. Now, I demand to know whether they are 
aware that the earth's rotation on its axis is the cause of day and 
night? But do you ever hear any of them use such phrases as 
"earth rising," and earth setting?" But if an infidel's daily use 
of the phrases, "sun rising," "sun setting," and the like, does not 
prove, either that he is ignorant of the earth's rotation as the cause 
of that appearance, or that he intends to deceive the world by those 
phrases, why may not Almighty God be as well informed and as 
honest as the infidel, though he also condescends to use the com- 
mon language of mankind. 

Do you ever hear astronomers, in common discourse, use any 
other language ? I suppose Lieut. Maury, and Herschell, and Le- 
verrier and Mitchell, know a little of the earth's rotation ; but they, 
too, use the English tongue very much like other people, and speak 
of sunrise and sunset ; yet nobody accuses them of believing in the 
Ptolemaic astronomy. Hear the immortal Kepler, the discoverer 
of the laws of planetary revolution: "We astronomers do not pur- 
sue this science with the view of altering common language ; but 
we wish to open the gates of truth, without affecting the vulgar 
modes of speech. We say with the common people, " The planets 
stand still, or go down;" "the sun rises, or sets;" meaning only 
that so the thing appears to us, although it is not truly so, as all 
264 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 13 

astronomers are agreed. How much less should ^e require that 
the Scriptures of Divine Inspiration, setting aside the common 
modes of speech, should shape their words according to the model 
of the natural sciences, and by employing a dark and inappropriate 
phraseology about things which surpass the comprehension of 
those whom it designs to instruct, perplex the simple people of 
God, and thus obstruct its own way towards the attainment of the 
far more exalted end to which it aims." 

It is evident, then, that God not only may, but must use popular 
language in addressing the people, in a work not professedly sci- 
entific ; and that if this popular language be scientifically incor- 
rect, such use of it neither implies his ignorance or approval of the 
error. 

But it may be worthy of enquiry whether this popular language 
of mankind, used in the Bible, be scientifically erroneous. If the 
language be intended to express an absolute reality, no doubt it is 
erroneous to say the sun rises and sets ; but if it be only intended 
to describe an appearance, and the words themselves declare that 
intention, it cannot be shown to be false to the fact. Now, when 
the matter is critically investigated, these phrases are found to be 
far more accurate than those of "earth rising," and "earth set- 
ting," which infidels say the author of the Bible should have used. 
For, as up and down have no existence in nature, save with refer- 
ence to a spectator, and as the earth is always down with respect 
to a spectator on its surface, neither rising towards him, nor sink- 
ing from him, in reality, nor appearing to do so, unless in an earth- 
quake, the improved phrases are false, both to the appearance of 
things, and to the cause of it. Whereas, our common speech, 
making no pretensions to describe the causes of appearances, can- 
not contradict any scientific discovery of these causes, and therefore 
cannot be false to the fact, while it truly describes all that it 
pretends to describe — the appearance of things — to our senses. 
And so,-after all the outcry raised against it by sciolists, the vulgar 
speech of mankind, used by the Author of the Bible, must be al- 
lowed to be philosophical enough for his purpose, and theirs : at 
least till somebody favors both with a better. 

Though we are in no way concerned, then, to prove that every 
poetical figure in Scripture, and every popular illustration taken 
from nature, corresponds to the accuracy of scientific investigation, 
before we believe the Bible to be a revelation of our duty to God 

265 



14 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

and man, yet it may be worth while to enquire, further, whether 
we really find upon its sacred pages such crude and egregious sci- 
entific errors as infidels allege. We have seen in the last Tract, 
that they are not able to read even its first chapter without blun- 
dering. Indeed, they generally boast of their ignorance of its con- 
tents. It is a very good rule to take them at their word, and when 
they quote Scripture, to take it for granted that they quote it wrong, 
unless you know the contrary. The first thing for you to do when 
an infidel tells you the Bible says so and so, is to get the book, and 
see whether it does or not. You will generally find that he has 
either misquoted the words, or mistaken their meaning, from a 
neglect of the context ; or perhaps has both misquoted and mis- 
taken. Then, when you are satisfied of the correct meaning of the 
text, and he tells you that it is contrary to the discoveries of sci- 
ence, the next point is to ask him, How do you know ? You will 
find his knowledge of science and scripture about equal. Both 
these tests should be applied to scientific objections to the Bible, 
as they are all composed of equal parts of Biblical blunders and 
philosophical fallacies. 

In the objection under consideration, for instance, both state- 
ments are wrong. The Bible does not represent the earth as the 
immovable center of the universe, or as immovable in space at all. 
It does not represent the Sun and stars as revolving around it. 
Nor are the facts of astronomy more correctly stated. It is not the 
Bible, but our objector, that is a little behind the age in his know- 
ledge of science. 

If we enquire for those texts of Scripture which represent the 
earth as the immovable center of the universe, we shall be referred 
to the figurative language of the Psalms, the book of Job, and other 
poetical parts of Scripture, which speak of the "foundations of the 
earth," " the earth being established," " abiding for ever," and the 
like, when the slightest attention to the language would show that 
it is intended to be figurative. The accumulation of metaphors and 
poetical images in some of these passages, is beautiful and grand 
in the highest degree ; but none, save the most stupid reader, 
would ever dream of interpreting them literally. Take, for in- 
stance, Psalm 104 : 1-6, where, in one line, the world is described 
as God's house, with beams, and chambers, and foundations ; but 
in the very next line the figure is changed, and it is viewed as an 
infant, covered with the deep, as with a garment. 
266 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 15 

" Bless the Lord, my soul. 

" Lord my God thou art very great ; 

** Thou art clothed -with honor and majesty: 

" Who coverest thyself with light, as with a garment : 

" Who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain : 

" Who layeth the beams of his chambers upon the waters : 

" Who walketh upon the wings of the wind : 

" Who maketh his angels spirits : 

" His ministers a flaming fire : 

" Who laid the foundations of the earth, 

" That it should not be removed for ever. 

" Thou coveredst it with the deep, as with a garment : 

" The waters stood above the mountains." 

But if any one is so gross as to insist on the literality of such a 
passage, and to allege that it teaches the absolute immobility of 
the earth, let him tell us what sort of immobility the 3d verse 
teaches, and how a building could be stable, the beams of whose 
chambers are laid upon the waters — the chosen emblems of insta- 
bility. "He hath founded it upon the seas : he hath established it 
upon the floods," says the same poet, in another Psalm: 24: 1. 
This, and all other expressions quoted as declaring the immobility 
of the earth in space, are clearly proved, both by the words used, 
and the sense of the context, to refer to an entirely different idea : 
namely, its duration in time. Thus, Eccl. 1 : 4, " One generation 
passeth away, and another cometh ; but the earth abideth for ever," 
is manifestly contrasting the duration of earth with the generations 
of short-lived men, and has no reference to motion in space at all. 

Again, in Psalm 119 : 89-91, our objectors find another Bible 
declaration of the immobility of the earth in space : 

" For ever, Lord, thy word is settled in heaven ; 

" Thy faithfulness is unto all generations ; 

" Thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. 

" They continue to this day, according to thine ordinances." 

The same permanence is here ascribed to the heavens (to which, 
as our objectors argue, the Bible ascribes a perpetual revolution) as 
to the earth. The next verse explains this permanence to be con- 
tinuance to this day : durability, not immobility. That the word 
establish does not necessarily imply fixture, is evident from its 
application, in Prov. 8 : 28 : "He established the clouds," the most 
fleeting of all things. Nor is the Hebrew word, Jcun (whence our 

267 



16 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

English word, cunning), inconsistent with motion ; else, the Psalm- 
ist had not said that "a good man's footsteps are established by the 
Lord."* "He established my goings." Wise arrangement is the 
idea, not permanent fixture. 

The same remarks apply to Psalm 93 : 1, — 96 : 10, — 1 Chron. 
16 : 30, and many other similar passages. 

" The world is established, that it cannot be moved ; 

" Thy throne is established of old : 

" Thou art from everlasting." 
Where the establishment, which is contrasted with the impossible 
removal, and which explains its import, is evidently not a local 
fixing of some material seat, in one place, but the everlasting dura- 
tion of God's authority. The idea is not that of position in space,, 
at all, but continued duration. 

Space does not allow us to quote all the passages which refer to 
this subject; but after an examination of every passage in the 
Bible usually referred to in this connection, and of a multitude of 
others bearing upon it, I have no hesitation in saying, that it does 
not contain a single text which asserts or implies the immobility 
of the earth in space. The notion was drawn from the absurdities 
of the Greek philosophy, and the superstitions of Popery, but was 
never gathered from the word of God. 

But it is alleged that other passages of scripture do plainly and 
unequivocally express the motion of the Sun, and his course in a 
circuit ; as, for instance, the nineteenth Psalm : 

" In them he hath set a tabernacle for the Sun, 

"Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, 

" And rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. 

" His going forth is from the end of heaven, 

"And his circuit unto the ends of it." 

And again, in the account of Joshua's miracle, in the tenth 
chapter of his book, it is quite evident that the writer supposed the 
Sun to be in motion, in the same way as the Moon, for he com- 
manded them both to stand still: "Sun, stand thou still upon 
Gibeon, and thou Moon in the valley of Ajalon. And the Sun 
stood still, and the Moon stayed, until the people had avenged 
themselves upon their enemies." Now, it is said, if the writer 
had known what he was about, he would have known that the Sun 

* Ps. 40: 1, and 37 : 23, margin. 
268 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 17 

was already standing still, and would have told the earth to stop 
its rotation. And if the earth had obeyed the command, we 
should never have heard of the miracle ; for, as the earth rotates 
at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, the concussion produced 
by such a stoppage would have projected Joshua, and Israelites, 
and Amorites, beyond the Moon, to pursue their quarrel among 
the fixed stars. 

When we hear men of some respectability bring forward such 
stuff, we are constrained to wonder, not merely were they ever at 
school, but if they ever traveled in a railroad car, or whether they 
suppose their hearers to be so ignorant of the most common facts, 
as to believe that there is no way of bringing a carriage to a stand 
but by a sudden jerk, or that God is more stupid than the brakes- 
man of an express train. We will do them the justice, however, 
to say, that they did not invent it, but merely shut their eyes, and 
opened their mouths, and swallowed it for philosophy, because they 
found it in the writings of an infidel scoffer, and of a Neological 
professor of theology* — an edifying example of infidel credulity ! 

Let it be noticed, that in neither of these texts, nor in any other 
portion of scripture, does the Bible say a single word about the 
revolution of the Sun round the earth, as the common center of the 
universe ; on which, however, the whole stress of the objection is 
laid. The passages do not prove what they are adduced to prove. 
They speak of the Sun's motion, and of the Sun's orbit, but they 
do not say that the earth is the center of that orbit. These texts, 
then, do not prove the author of the Bible ignorant of the system 
of the universe. 

The objection is based upon utter ignorance of one of the most 
important and best attested discoveries of modern astronomy : the 
grand motion of the Sun and Solar System through the regions of 
space, and the dependence of the rotation of all the orbs composing 
it, upon that motion. It is not the author of the Bible who is igno- 
rant of the discoveries of modern astronomy — when he speaks of the 
orbit of the Sun, and his race from one end of the heavens to the 
other, and of the need of a miraculous interposition to stop his 
course for a single day — but his correctors, who have ventured to 
decry the statements of a book which commands the respect of 
such astronomers as Herschell and Kosse, while ignorant of those 

* M. Voltaire ; M. Cheneviere ; Theol. Essays, yol. 1, p. 456. 

2 269 



18 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

elements of astronomy which they might have learned from a peru- 
sal of the books used by their children, in our common schools. 
For the benefit of such, however, I will present a brief explanation 
of the grounds upon which astronomers are as universally agreed 
upon the belief of the Sun's motion around a center of the firma- 
ment, as they are upon the belief of the revolution of the earth 
round the Sun. 

When you are passing in a carriage, at night, through the street 
of a city lighted up by gas-lamps in the streets, and lights irregu- 
larly dispersed in the windows, or passing in a ferry-boat, from 
one such city to another, at a short distance from it, you observe 
that the lights which you are leaving appear to draw closer and 
closer together, while those towards which you are approaching 
widen out, and seem to separate from each other. If the night 
were perfectly dark, so that you could see nothing but the lights, 
you could certainly know not only that you were in motion, but 
also to what point you were moving, by carefully watching their 
appearances. So, if all the fixed stars were absolutely fixed, and 
the Sun and planets, including our earth, were moving in any di- 
rection — say to the north — then the stars towards which we were 
moving would seem to widen out from each other, and those which 
we were leaving would seem to close up ; so that the space which 
appeared between any two stars in the south, in a correct map of 
the heavens, a hundred years ago, would be smaller, and that 
between any two stars in the north would be larger, than the space 
between the same stars upon a correct map now. Now, such 
changes in the apparent positions of stars are actually observed. 
The stars do not appear in the same places now as they did a hun- 
dred years ago. 

The fixed stars, then, are either drifting past our Solar System, 
which alone remains fixed ; or, the fixed stars are all actually at 
rest, and our Sun is drifting through them ; or, our Solar System 
and the so called fixed stars are both in motion. One or other of 
these suppositions must be the fact. The first is simply the old 
Ptolemaic absurdity, only transferring the center of the universe to 
the Sun. The second is contrary to the observed fact, that multi- 
tudes of the stars which were supposed to be fixed, are actually 
revolving around each other, in systems of double, triple, and mul- 
tiple suns. And both are contrary to the first principles of gravi- 
tation ; for, as every particle of matter attracts every other, directly 
270 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 19 

as the mass, and inversely as the square of the distance, if any one 
particle of matter in the universe is in motion, the square of its 
distance from every other particle varies, and its attraction is in- 
creased in one direction, and diminished in another ; and so every 
particle of matter in free space, as far as the force of gravitation 
extends, will be put in motion too. But our earth, and the planets, 
and the double and triple stars, are in motion, and the law of grav- 
itation extends to every known part of the universe ; therefore, 
every known particle of matter in the universe is in motion too, our 
Sun included. 

The third supposition, then, is most indisputably true : our Solar 
System, and all the heavenly bodies, are in motion. To this con- 
clusion all the observed facts conform. The Bible does say that 
the Sun moves, and moves in a curve. All mathematicians prove 
that it must of necessity do so. All astronomers assert that it does 
so. The unanimous verdict of the scientific world is thus rendered 
by Nicholl : " As to the subject itself, the grand motion of the Sun, 
as well as its present direction, must be received now as an estab- 
lished doctrine of Astronomy." * But the discovery was antici- 
pated, three thousand years ago, by the Author of the Bible. 

But, as will readily be perceived, the difficulty of determining 
either the direction or the rate of this motion is immensely in- 
creased in this case ; for we are now not like persons riding in a 
carriage, watching the fixed lights in the street to determine our 
direction and rate of progress ; but we are watching the lamps of a 
multitude of carriages, moving at various distances, and with va- 
rious velocities, and, for any thing we can tell at first sight, in 
various directions. We are on board a steamer, and are watching 
the lights of a multitude of other steamers, also in motion ; and it 
is not easy to find out, in the darkness, how either they or we are 
going. If each were pursuing its own independent course, without 
any common object or destination, the confusion would be so great 
that we could learn nothing of the rate or direction either of our 
own motion or theirs. 

But astronomers are not content to believe that the universe is 
governed by accident. The whole science is based upon the as- 



* Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. 1, p. 139 ; HerschelTs Outlines, 380 ; Kendall's TJrano- 
graphy, 205. 
f Architecture of the Heavens, 9th ed., p. 252. 

271 



20 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

sumption, that a presiding mind has impressed the stamp of order 
and regularity upon the whole cosmos. They are deeply convinced 
that God's law extends to all God's creation : that all his works 
display his intelligence, as well as his power, and proceed accord- 
ing to a wise plan. Having seen that all the stellar motions pre- 
viously known are orderly motions, in circular or elliptical orbits, 
and that the most of the solid bodies belonging to our own system 
revolve in one direction, they reasoned from analogy that this 
might be the case with the Sun and fixed stars, and went to work 
with great diligence, to see whether it was or not ; and, by com- 
paring a great multitude of observations, ancient and modern, 
made both in the northern and southern hemisphere, and on all 
sorts of stars, they have come to the unanimous conclusion, that 
our own Sun, and all the bodies of the Solar System, are flying 
northward, at the rate of a hundred and fifty millions of miles 
a year — a thousand times faster than a railway train — towards the 
constellation Hercules, in R. A. 259° Dec. 35°. 

Further, as the direction of this motion is slowly and regularly 
changing, just as the direction of the head of a steamer in wearing, 
or of a railway train running a curve, it is certain that the Sun is 
moving, not in a straight line, but in a curve. The revolution of 
the Sun in such an orbit was known to the Author of the Bible 
when he wrote, " his circuit is to the end of heaven." The direc- 
tion of the circumference of a circle being known, that of its center 
can be found ; for the radius is always a tangent to the circumfer- 
ence, and the intersection of two of these radii will be the center ; 
so that, if we certainly knew the Sun's orbit to be circular, or near- 
ly so, we could calculate the center. But as we do not certainly 
know its form, we cannot certainly calculate the center: we can 
only come near it. And as we know that the line which connects 
the circumference with the center of the Sun's orbit, runs through 
the group of stars known as the Pleiades, or the Cluster; and as 
all the stars along that line seem to move in the same direction — a 
direction different from that of the stars in other regions, just as 
they must do if they and we were revolving around that group — 
Argelander and others have concluded, with a high degree of 
probability, that the grand center around which the Sun and our 
firmament revolve, is that constellation which the Author of the 
Bible, more than three thousand years ago, called kyme — the pivot. 

It would require a greater knowledge of electro-magnetism than 
272 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 21 

TttKtt of my readers possess, to explain the connection of the earth's 
rotation with the Sun's grand movement, I will merely state the 
facts. Electro-magnetism is induced by friction. The regions of 
space are not empty, but filled with an ether, whose undulations 
produce light; and this ether is sufficiently dense to retard the 
motions of comets. The friction produced by the passage of the 
Sun and Solar System through this ether, at the rate of 20,000 
miles an hour, must be immense, and is one source of electricity, 
and the principal source of electro-magnetism. This kind of elec- 
tricity differs from the other kinds, in that its action is always at 
right angles to the current, and tends to produce rotation in any 
wheel, cylinder, or sphere, along whose axis it flows* The Sun, 
and all the planets traveling in the direction of their poles, the 
current is of course in the direction of the axis ; and the result is, 
that while the Sun moves along his grand course, he and all the 
bodies of the system will rotate, by the influence of the electro- 
magnetism generated by that motion ; and if he stops, bis and their 
rotation stops too. Day and night on earth are produced by the 
Sun's motion causing the earth's rotation. You can see the prin- 
ciple illustrated by the child, who runs along the street with his 
windmill, to create a current, which will make it revolve. The 
Author of the Bible made no mistake when, desiring to lengthen 
the day, he commanded the Sun to stand still. It is not the 
Creator, but his correctors, who are ignorant of the mechanism of 
the universe. 

Thus, these long-misunderstood and much-assailed Scriptures 
are not only vindicated, but far more than vindicated, by the prog- 
ress of astronomical discovery. It not only proves the language 
of the Bible to be correct: it assures us that it is divine. The 
same hand which formed the stars to guide the simple peasant to 
his dwelling, at the close of day, and to lead the mighty intellects 
of Newton and of Herschell among the mysteries of the universe, 
formed those expressions which, to the peasant's eye, describe the 
apparent reality, and, to the astronomer's reason, demonstrate the 
reality of the appearance of the heavens, and are thus, alike to 
peasant and philosopher, the oracles of God. Here we have astro- 
nomical truth not discovered by astronomers, but revealed by 



* Connection of the Physical Sciences, 171, 337, 315 ; Architecture of the Heavens, 
286. 

18 273 



22 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

prophets — scientific discovery, in advance of science — predictions 
of the future progress of the human intellect, no less than revela- 
tions of the existing motions of the stars. He who wrote these 
oracles knew that the creatures to whom he gave them would one 
day unfold their hidden meaning (else he had not so written them), 
and, in the light of scientific discovery, see them to be as truly 
divine predictions of the advance of science, as the prophecies of 
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, read among the ruins of Thebes or Babylon, 
are seen to be predictions of the ruin of empires. Man's discove- 
ries fade into insignificance in the presence of such unfolding mys- 
teries ; and we are led to our Bibles, with the prayer, " open mine 
eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." 

4. The ancient charter of the Church was written in the lan- 
guage of one of the most recent astronomical discoveries, thirty-six 
hundred years before Herschell and Rosse enabled us to under- 
stand its full significance : " He brought him forth abroad, and said 
unto him, ' Look now to heaven, and count the stars, if thou be able 
to number them. 1 And he said unto him, ' Ho shall thy seed be' " * 

The scenery was well calculated to impress Abraham's mind 
with a sense of the ability of Christ to fulfil a very glorious prom- 
ise, by a very improbable event ; but the illustration was as well 
calculated as the promise to test the character of that faith which 
takes God's word as sufficient evidence of things not seen ; for, if 
the promise was a trying test of faith, so was the illustration. 
Before this, God had promised that his seed should be as the dust 
of the earth ; and afterwards he declared it should be as the sand 
of the sea shore : the well known symbol of a multitude beyond all 
power of calculation. To couple the stars of heaven with the sand 
upon the sea shore, in any such connection as to imply that the 
stars too were innumerable, or that their number came within any 
degree of comparison with the ocean sands, must have seemed to 
Abraham in the highest degree mysterious, even as it has appeared 
to scoffers, in modern times, utterly ridiculous ; for, though the 
first glance at the sky conveys the impression that the stars are 
really innumerable, the investigations of our imperfect astronomy 
seem to assure us that this is by no means the case. And, as the 
patriarch sat, night after night, at his tent door, and, in obedience 

* Gen. 15 : 5, 

274 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 23 

to the command of Christ, counted the stars, and made such a 
catalogue of them as his Chaldean preceptors had used, he would 
very speedily come to the conclusion, that so far as he could see, 
they were by no means innumerable ; for the catalogue of Hippar- 
chus reckons only 1026 as visible to one observer, and the whole 
number visible in both hemispheres by the naked eye does not 
exceed 5000.* And even if we suppose, what is very probable, that 
these old patriarchs had better eyes, as we know they had a clearer 
sky, than modern western observers, and that Abraham saw the 
moons of Jupiter and stars as small, still the number would not 
seem in the least degree comparable with the number of the sands 
upon the sea-shore — whereof a million are contained in a cubic 
inch,f a number greater than the population of the globe in a 
square foot, while the sum total of the human race, from Adam to 
this hour, would not approach to the aggregate of the sands of a 
single mile — for, though the stars of a size too small to be visible 
to our eyes, are much more numerous than the larger stars, yet 
even up to the range of view possessed by ordinary telescopes, they 
are by no means innumerable, nor nearly so. In fact, they are 
counted and registered, and the number of the stars of the 9th 
magnitude, which are four times as distant as the most distant vis- 
ible to our eyes — so distant that their light is 586 years in travel- 
ing towards us— is declared to be exactly 37,739. Abraham's 
sense and Abraham's faith must have had many a conflict on this 
promise, as the faith and the sense of many of his children, espe- 
cially the scientific portion of them, have since, when reading such 
portions as this and those other scriptures which represent it as an 
achievement of Omniscience, that "he counts the number of the 
stars, and calleth them all by their names." J It is indeed re- 
markable how God delights to test the faith of his people, and 
stumble the pride of fools, by presenting this mysterious truth of 
the innumerable multitude of the stars, in every announcement of 
the wonderful works of him who is perfect in wisdom. Infant 
astronomy stretched out her hands to catch the stars, and count 
them. Many a proud infidel wondered that Moses could be so silly 
as to suppose he could not count the stars, and the believer often 

* Nicholl's Architecture of the Heavens, 32. 

f Ehrenberg computes that there are are 41,000,000 of the shells of animalcule in a 
eubic inch of rotten stone. 

^.147:4. . 2M 



24 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

wondered what these words could mean. But faith rests in the 
persuasion of two great truths : " God is very wise," and " I am 
very ignorant." 

The. increase of knowledge, by widening the boundaries of our 
ignorance, seemed for a time to render the difficulty even greater. 
The increased power of HerschelPs telescopes, and his discovery 
of the constitution of the Milky Way, mark an era in the progress 
of astronomy, and enlarge our views of the extent of the universe, 
to an extent inconceivable by those who have not studied the sci- 
ence. Where we see only a faint whitish cloud stretching across 
the sky, HerschelPs telescope disclosed a vast bed of stars. At 
one time he counted 588 stars in the field of his telescope. In a 
quarter of an hour, 116,000 passed before his eye. In another 
portion, he found 331,000 stars, in a single cluster.* He found 
the whole structure of that vast luminous cloud which spans the 
sky, " to consist entirely of stars, scattered by millions, like glitter- 
ing dust, on the back ground of the general heavens." 

Yet still it was not supposed to be at all impossible to estimate 
their numbers. Even this distinguished astronomer, a few years 
ago, computed it at eight or ten millions. Schroeter allowed 
twenty degrees of it to pass before him, and withdrew from the 
majestic spectacle, exclaiming, "What Omnipotence!" He calcu- 
lated, however, that the number of the stars visible through one of 
the best telescopes in Europe, in 1840, was 12,000,000 — a number 
equalled by a single generation of Abraham's descendants — far 
below the power of computation, and utterly insignificant, as com- 
pared with the sands of the sea. 

Had our powers of observation stopped here, the great promise 
must still have seemed as mysterious to the Astronomer, as it once 
seemed to the Patriarch. But if either the Father of the Faithful, 
or the Father of Siderial Astronomy, had deluded himself with the 
notion, that he fully comprehended either the words or the works 
of him who is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in working, and 
argued thence that, because the revealed words and the visible 
works seemed not to correspond, they were really contradictory, 
he would have committed the blunder of modern infidels, who 
assume that they know every thing, and that as God's knowledge 
cannot be any greater than theirs, every scripture which their 

* Dick's Siderial Heavens, 69 ; Herschell's Outlines. 

276 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 25 

science cannot comprehend must be erroneous. The grandest 
truths, imperfectly perceived in the twilight of incipient science, 
serve as stumbling-blocks for conceited speculators, as well as land- 
marks of the boundaries of knowledge to true philosophers, who 
will ever imbibe the spirit of Newton's celebrated saying : " I seem 
to myself like a child gathering pebbles on the shore, while the 
great ocean of knowledge lies unexplored before me ;" or the pro- 
found remark of Humboldt : " What is seen does not exhaust that 
which is perceptible." 

But the progress of science was not destined merely to coast the 
shore of this ocean. In 1845, Lord Rosse, and a band of accom- 
plished astronomers, commenced a voyage through the immensities, 
with a telescope which has enlarged our view of the visible uni- 
verse to 125,000,000 times the extent before perceived, and dis- 
played far more accurately the real form and nature of objects 
previously seen. Herschell's researches into the Architecture of 
the Heavens, which have justly rendered his name immortal as the 
science he illustrated, had revealed the existence of great numbers 
of nebulce — clouds of light — faint, yet distinct. He supposed many 
of these to consist of a luminous fluid, pretty near to us — at least, 
comparatively so ; for to believe that they were stars, so far away 
as to be severally invisible in his forty feet telescope, while yet 
several of these clouds are distinctly seen by the naked eye, in- 
volved the belief of distance so astounding, and of multitudes so 
incredible, and of a degree of closeness of the several stars so un- 
paralleled by any thing which even he had observed, that his im- 
agination and reason failed to meet the requirements of such a 
problem. The supposition was, however, thrown out by this gigan- 
tic intellect, that these clouds might be firmaments : that the Bible 
word heavens might be literally plural; and more than that, he 
labored in the accumulation of facts which tended to confirm it. 
He disclosed the fact, that several of these apparent clouds, which, 
to very excellent telescopes, displayed only a larger surface of 
cloudy matter, did, in the reflector of his largest telescope, display 
themselves in their true character, as globular clusters, consisting 
of innumerable multitudes of glorious stars ; and, moreover, that, 
stretching away far beyond star, or Milky Way, or nebulce, he had 
seen, in some parts of the heavens, "a stippling/' or uniform 
dotting of the field of view, by points of light too small to admit 
of any one being steadily or fixedly examined, and too numerous 

3 277 



26 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

for counting, were it possible so to view them ! What are these ! 
Millions upon millions of years must have elapsed ere that faint 
light could reach our globe, from those profundities of space, 
though it travels like the lightning's flash. If they are stars, the 
sands of the sea-shore are as inferior in numbers as the surface of 
earth is inferior in dimensions to the arch of Heaven. But if 
these faint dots and stipplings are not single stars ! — if they are 
star-clouds — galaxies — firmaments, like our Milky Way — our in- 
finity is multiplied by millions upon millions ! Imagination pants, 
reason grows dizzy, arithmetic fails to fathom, and human eyes 
fear to look into the abyss. No wonder that this profound astrono- 
mer, when a glimpse of infinity flashed on his eye, retired from 
the telescope, trembing in every nerve, afraid to behold. 

And yet this astounding supposition is a literal truth ; and the 
light of those suns, whose twilight thus bowed down that mighty 
intellect in reverent adoration, now shines before human eyes in 
all its noon-day refulgence. One of the most remarkable of these 
nebulas — one which is visible to a good eye in the belt of Orion — 
has been disclosed to the observers at Parsontown as a firmament; 
and minute points, scarce perceptible to common telescopes, blaze 
forth as magnificent clusters of glorious stars, so close and crowded, 
that no figure can adequately describe them, save the twin symbol 
of the promise, " the sand by the sea-shore," or " the dust of the 
earth." " There is a minute point, near Polaris," says Nicholl, 
" so minute, that it requires a good telescope to discern its being. 
I have seen it as represented by a good mirror, blazing like a 
star of the first magnitude ; and though examined by a potent 
microscope, clear and definite as the distinctest of these our 
nearest orbs, when beheld through an atmosphere not disturbed. 
Nay, through distances of an order I shall scarcely name, I have 
seen a mass of orbs compressed and brilliant, so that each touched 
on each other, like the separate grains of a handful of sand, and 
yet there seemed no melting or fusion of any one of the points 
into the surrounding mass. Each sparkled individually its light 
pure and apart, like that of any constituent of the cluster of the 
Pleiades." * 

" The larger and nearer masses are seen with sufficient distinct- 
ness to reveal the grand fact decisive of their character, viz. : that 

♦ Architecture of the Heavens, 62. 

278 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 27 

they consist of multitudes of closely related orbs, forming an inde- 
pendent system. In other cases we find the individual stars by 
no means so clearly defined. Through effect, in all probability, of 
distance, the intervals between them appear much less, the shining 
points themselves being also fainter ; while the masses still further 
off may be best likened to a handful of golden sand, or, as it is 
aptly termed, star-dust; beyond which no stars, or any vestige of 
them, are seen, but only a patch or streak of milky light, similar to 
the unresolved portions of our surrounding 2one." * 

To say, then, that the stars of the sky are actually innumerable, 
is only a cold statement of the plainest fact. Hear it in the lan- 
guage of one privileged to behold the glories of one out of the 
thousands of similar firmaments : " The mottled region forming 
the lighter part of the mass (the nebula in Orion) is a very blaze 
of stars. But that stellar creation, now that we are freed from all 
dubiety concerning the significance of those hazes that float num- 
berless in space, how glorious, how endless ! Behold, amid that 
limitless ocean, every speck, however remote or dim : a noble 
galax} 7- . Lustrous they are, too : in manifold instances be3 7 ond all 
neighboring reality — beyond the loftiest dream which ever exer- 
cised the imagination. The great cluster in Hercules has long 
dazzled the heart with its splendors, but we have learned now that 
among circular and compact galaxies, a class to which the nebu- 
lous stars belong, there are multitudes which infinitely surpass it 
— nay, that schemes of being rise above it, sun becoming nearer to 
sun, until their skies must be one-blaze of light — a throng of burn- 
ing activities ! But, far aloft stands Orion, the pre-eminent glory 
and wonder of the starry universe ! Judged by the only criticism 
yet applicable, it is perhaps so remote that its light does not reach 
us in less than fifty or sixty thousand years ; and as at the same 
time it occupies so large an apparent portion of the heavens, how 
stupendous must be the extent of the nebula. It would seem 
almost as if all the other clusters hitherto gaged were collected and 
compressed into one, they would not surpass this mighty group, in 
which every wisp — every wrinkle — is a sand-heap of stars. There 
are cases in which, though Imagination has quailed, Reason may 
still adventure enquiry, and prolong its speculations ; but at times 
we are brought to a limit across which no human faculty has the 

* Architecture of the Heavens, 64. 

279 



28 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

strength to penetrate, and where, as now, at the very footstool of 
the secret Throne, we can only bend our heads, and silently adore. 
And from the inner Adyta — the invisible shrine of what alone is 
and endures — a voice is heard : 

" Hast thou an arm like God ? 

" Canst thou thunder with a voice like him ? 

" Canst thou bind the sweet influences of the Pleiades, 

" Or loosen the bands of Orion ? 

" Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his seasons ? 

" Canst thou guide Arcturus and his sons ? * 

" He telleth the number of the stars : 

" He calleth them all by their names. 

"Great is our Lord, and of great power; 

" His understanding is infinite." f 

Thus, nobly does Science vindicate Scripture, and display the 
wisdom and power of the Lord of Hosts, whose kingdom extends 
through all space, and endures through all duration. He who 
called these countless hosts of glorious orbs into being, is abun- 
dantly able to multiply to an equally incalculable number, the 
humble sands which line the oceans of terrestrial grace : the bril- 
liant stars which shall yet adorn the heavens of celestial glory. 
All, of every nation, who shall partake of Abraham's faith, are 
Abraham's children. They are Christ's, and so Abraham's seed, 
and heirs, according to this promise.^ When the great multitude, 
which no man can number, out of every nation, and tongue, and 
people, stand before the throne of God, and cause the many man- 
sions of our Father's house to re-echo the shout, " Salvation to our 
God which sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb," the answering 
hallelujah's of the most distant orbs shall expound the purport of 
that solemn oath to Abraham and Abraham's seed: "By myself 
have I sworn, saith the Lord, because thou hast done this thing, 
and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son, from me ; that in 
blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy 
seed, as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the 
sea-shore." $ 

5. It is not probable that the mysteries of the distant heavens, 
or of those future glories of the redeemed which the Bible employs 

* Architecture of the Heavens, 144. J Gen. 22 : 16. 

f Job, 38 : 31. Ps. 147 : 4. g Gal. iii, 14 : 29. 

280 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 29 

them to symbolize, will ever be fully explored by man, or adequately 
apprehended in the present state of being. But it is most certain 
that God would not have employed the mysteries of astronomy so 
frequently as the symbols of the mysteries of the glory to be re- 
vealed, had there not been some correspondence between the things 
which eye hath not seen, and these patterns shown in the mount. 
So habitual, indeed, is the scripture use of these visible heavens as 
the types of all that is exalted, pure, cheering, and glorious, that, 
to most christians, the word has lost its primary meaning, and the 
idea first suggested to their minds by the word heaven is, .that of 
future glory ; yet their views of the locality and physical adorn- 
ments of the many mansions of their Father's house, are dim and 
shadowy, just because they do not acquaint themselves sufficiently 
with the Divine descriptions in the Bible, and the Divine illustra- 
tions in the sky. The Bible would be better understood were the 
heavens better explored. " I go," said Jesus, " to prepare a place 
for you." The bodies of the saints, raised on the resurrection 
morn, will need a place on which to stand. The body of the Lord, 
which his disciples handled, and " saw that a spirit had not flesh 
and bones, as they saw him have," is now resident in a place. 
Where he is, there shall his people be also. Why, then, when the 
Bible employs all that is beauteous in earth, and glorious in 
heaven, to describe the adornments of the palace of the King of 
kings, should we hesitate to believe that the power and wisdom of 
God are not exhausted in this little earth of ours, but that other 
worlds may as far transcend ours in glory, as many of them do in 
magnitude ? — or, to allow that the glorious visions of Ezekiel and 
John were not views of nonentities, or mere visions of clouds, 
or of some incomprehensible symbols of more incomprehensible 
spiritualities, but actual views of the existing glories of some 
portion of the universe, presented to us as vividly as the dullness 
of our minds and the earthliness of our speech will permit? It is 
certain that the recent progress of astronomical discovery has re- 
vealed celestial scenery which illustrates some of the most myste- 
rious of these visions. 

It has long been known, that "one star differeth from another 
star in glory," and that the orbs of heaven shine with various 
colors. Sirius is white, Arcturus red, and Procyon yellow. The 
telescope shows all the smaller stars in various colors. Under the 
clear skies of Syria their brilliance is vastly greater than in our 

281 



30 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

climate. " One star shines like a ruby, another as an emerald, 
and the whole heavens sparkle as with various gems." * But the 
discovery of the double and triple stars has added a new harmony 
of colors to these coronets of celestial jewels. These stars gener- 
ally display the complementary colors. If the one star displays a 
color from the red end of the spectrum, the other is generally of 
the corresponding shade, from the violet end. For instance, in 3 
Cygni, the large star is yellow, and the two smaller stars are blue ; 
and so in others, through all the colors of the rainbow. " It may 
be easier suggested in words," says Sir John Herschell, " than 
conceived in imagination, what a variety of illumination two stars 
— a red and a green, or a yellow and blue one — must afford a 
planet circulating around either, and what cheering contrasts and 
grateful vicissitudes a red and a green day, for instance, alternating 
with a white one, and with darkness, must arise from the presence 
or absence of one, or other, or both, from the horizon." f Bufc 
suppose one of the globular clusters — for instance, that in the con- 
stellation Hercules — thus constituted ; its unnumbered thousands 
of suns, wheeling round central worlds, and exhibiting their glories 
to their inhabitants: "skies blazing, with grand orbs scattered 
regularly around, and with a profusion to which our darker heavens 
are strangers ;" the overhead sky, seen from the interior regions 
of the cluster, must appear gorgeous beyond descriptio?i." In the 
strictest literality it might be said to the dwellers in such a cluster, 
" Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon with- 
draw herself." The surrounding walls of such a celestial palace 
must seem indeed " garnished with all manner of precious stones." 
Sapphire, emerald, sardius, chrysolite, and pearl, must seem but 
dim mirrors of its glorious refulgence. Under its ever rising suns 
the gates need not be shut at all by day, "for there shall be no 
night there." That glorious place now exists, though far away. 

Bat the Lord of these Hosts has said, "Behold, I come quickly." 
He will not tarry. A thousand times faster than the swiftest cha- 
riot, our Solar System and the surrounding firmament wing their 
flight towards that same glorious cluster in Hercules. As our fir- 
mament approaches, under the guidance of Omnipotent wisdom, it 
too must fly to meet our Sun, with a velocity increasing with an 
incalculable ratio. The celestial city will then be seen to descend 

* Architecture of the Heavens, 217. f Architecture of the Heavens, 77, 130. 

282 



TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 31 

from heaven. Once within the sphere of its attractions, our Sun 
and surrounding planets -will feel their power. Their ancient 
orbits and accustomed revolutions must give way to the higher 
power. Old things must pass away, and all things become new. 
A new heaven, no less than a new earth, will form the dwelling of 
righteousness. 

These are no longer the visions of prophecy merely, but the 
sober calculations of mathematical science, based upon a founda- 
tion as solid as the attraction of gravitation, and as wide as the 
existence of that ether whose undulations convey the light of the 
most distant stars ; for, so surely as that attraction is efficient, 
must all the firmaments of the heavens be drawn more closely 
together ; and as certainly as they revolve not in empty space, but 
in a medium capable of retarding Encke's comet three days in 
every revolution, must that retarding medium bring their revolu- 
tions to a close. "And so/' said Herschell, casting his eye fear- 
lessly towards future infinities, "we may be certain that the stars 
in the Milky Way will be gradually compressed, through succes- 
sive stages of accumulation, until they come up to what may be 
called the ripening period of the globular cluster." Unnumbered 
ages may be occupied with such a grand evolution of celestial 
progress, beyond our powers of calculation ; but will the changes 
of created things, even then, have come to an end? Hear again 
the voice, not of the prophet, but of the astronomer: "Around 
us lie stabilities of every order; but it is stability only that we 
see, not permanence. As the course of our enquiry has already 
amply illustrated, even majestic systems, that at first appear final 
and complete, are found to resolve themselves into mere steps or 
phases of still loftier progress. Yerily, it is an astonishing world 1 
Change rising above change — cycle growing out of cycle, in majes- 
tic progression — each new one ever widening, like the circles that 
wreathe from a spark of flame, enlarging as they ascend, finally 
to become lost in the empyrean ! And if all that we see, from 
earth to sun, and from sun to universal star-work — that wherein 
we best behold images of Eternity, Immortality, and God — if that 
is only a state or space of a course of being rolling onward ever- 
more, what must be the Creator, the Preserver, the Guide of all ! 
■ — He at whose bidding these phantasms came from nothingness, 



* Architecture of the Heavens, 300. 

283 



32 TELESCOPIC VIEWS OF SCRIPTURE. 

and shall again disappear; — whose name, amid all things, alone 
is Existence — I am that I am? 

" Of old hast thou laid the foundations of the earth, 

" And the heavens are the works of thy hands ; 

" They shall perish, 

"But thou shalt endure ; ♦ 

" Yea, all of them shall wax old, like a garment : 

" As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed ; 

" But thou art the same, 

" And thy years shall have no end. 

"The children of thy servants shall continue, 

"And their seed shall be established before thee." 

Psalm cii : 25. 

" And I saw a new heaven, and a new earth ; 

" For the first heaven and the first earth were passed away, 

" And there was no more sea. 

" And I, John, saw the Holy City, New Jerusalem, 

" Coming down from God, out of heaven, 

" Prepared, as a bride, adorned for her husband. 

" And I heard a great voice, out of heaven, saying, 

" Behold the tabernacle of God is with men, 

" And he will dwell with them, 

" And they shall be his people, 

" And God himself shall be with them, and be their God." 

Revelations, xxi. 

Reader, is this glorious heaven your inheritance? Is this Un- 
changeable Jehovah your God? Are you looking for and hasting 
unto the coming of the day of God ? Is it your daily prayer, Even 
so, Lord Jesus, come quickly ! 



No. 34. 

SCIENCE, OB FAITH? 

'Faith is destined to be left behind in the onward march of 
the human intellect. It belongs to an infantile stage of intel- 
lectual development, when experience, dependent on testimony, 
becomes the slave of credulity. Children and childish nations 
are prone to superstition. Religion belongs properly to such. 
But as man advances into the knowledge of the physical sciences, 
and becomes familiarized with mathematical demonstration and 
scientific experiment, he demands substantial proofs for all kinds 
of knowledge, and rejects that which is merely matter of faith. 
Science thus becomes the grave of religion, as religion is vul- 
garly understood. But science gives a new and better religion 
to the world. Instead of filling men's minds with the vague 
terrors of an unknown futurity, it directs us to the best modes 
of improving this life.' — "This life being the first in certainty, 
give it the first place in importance; and by giving human du- 
ties in reference to men the precedence, secure that all interpre- 
tations of spiritual duty shall be in harmony with human pro- 
gress." — "Nature refers us to science for help, and to humanity 
for sympathy; love to the lovely is our only homage, study our 
only praise, quiet submission to the inevitable our duty; and 
truth is our only worship." — " Our knowledge is confined to this 
life ; and testimony, and conjecture, and probability, are all that 
can be set forth in regard to another." "Preach nature and 
science, morality and art; nature, the only subject of Jcnoxdedge ; 
morality the harmony of action ; art the culture of the individual 
and society."* 

Such is the language now used by a large class of half-edu- 
cated people, who, deriving their philosophy from Comte, and 
their religion from the Westminster Review, invite us to spend 
our Sabbaths in the study of nature in the fields and museums, 
turn our churches into laboratories, exchange our Bibles for 
encyclopedias, give ourselves no more trouble about religion, but 
try hard to learn as much science, make as much money, and 
enjoy as much pleasure in this life as we can; because we 

.— --"' ■ — — ■ ■■■ ■ ■■■■■■ i ■ ■ - i 

* Holyoake Discussion with Grant, and, Discussion with Townley> passim. 

285 



2 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

know that we live now, and can only believe that we shall live 
hereafter. I do not propose to take any notice here of the pro- 
posal of Secularism — for that is the new name of this old ungod- 
liness — to deliver men from their lusts by scientific lectures, and 
keep them moral by overturning religion. That experiment has 
been tried already.* But it is worth while to inquire, Is science 
really so positive, and religion so uncertain as these persons 
allege ? Is a knowledge of the physical sciences so all-sufficient 
for our present happiness, so attainable by all mankind, and so 
certain and infallible, that we should barter our immortality for 
it ? And on the other hand, are the great facts of religious 
experience, and the foundations of our religious faith, so dim, 
and vague, and utterly uncertain, that we may safely consign 
them to oblivion, or that we can so get rid of them if we 
would ? 

The object of this tract is to refute both parts of the secu- 
larist's statement — to show some of the uncertainties, errors, 
contradictions, and blunders of the scientific men on whose tes- 
timony they receive their science — and to exhibit a few of the 
facts of religious experience which give a sufficient warrant for 
the Christian's faith. 

I. The students of the Physical Sciences, have no such certain 
knowledge of their facts or theories, as Secularists pretend. 

1. To begin with the most positive, Mathematics — the science 
of magnitude and numbers. How very few subjects are capable 
of a mathematical demonstration. No fact whatever which de- 
pends on the will of God or man can be so proved. For mathe- 
matical demonstration is founded on necessary and eternal 
relations, and admits of no contingencies in its premises. The 
mathematician may demonstrate the size and properties of a 
triangle, but he can not demonstrate the continuance of any 
actual triangle for one hour, or one minute, after his demonstra- 
tion. And if he could, how many of my most important affairs 
can I submit to the multiplication table, or lay off in squares 
and triangles? It deals with purely ideal figures, which never 
did or could exist. There is not a mathematical line — length 
without breadth — in the universe. When we come to the appli- 

* See Tract No. 25, Have we any need of the Bible? 

286 . i 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 3 

cation of mathematics, we are met at once by the fact that there 
are no mathematical figures in nature. It is true we speak of 
the orbits of the planets as elliptical or circular, but it is only in 
a general way, as we speak of a circular saw, the outline of its 
teeth being regularity itself compared with the perturbations of 
the orbits of the planets. We speak of the earth as a spheroid; 
but it is a spheroid pitted with hollows as deep as the ocean, 
and crusted with irregular protuberances as vast as the Himma- 
laya and the Andes, in every conceivable irregularity of form. 
Its sea coasts and rivers follow no straight lines nor geometrical 
curves. There is not an acre of absolutely level ground on the 
face of the earth; and even its waters will pile themselves up 
in waves, or dash into breakers, rather than remain perfectly level 
for a single hour. Its minuter formations present the same regu- 
lar irregularity of form. Even the crystals, which approach the 
nearest of any natural productions to mathematical figures, break 
with compound irregular fractures at their bases of attachment. 
The surface of the pearl is proportionally rougher than the sur- 
face of the earth, and the dew-drop is not more spherical than a x 
pear. As nature then gives no mathematical figures, mathemat- 
ical measurements of such figures can be only approximately 
applied to natural objects. 

The utter absence of any regularity, or assimilation to the 
spheroidal figure, either in meridional, equatorial, or parallel 
lines, mountain ranges, sea beaches, or courses of rivers, is fatal 
to mathematical accuracy in the more extended geographical 
measurements. It is only by taking the mean of a great many 
measurements that an approximate accuracy can be obtained. 
Where this is not possible, as in the case of the measurements 
of high mountains, the truth remains undetermined by hundreds 
of feet; or as in the case of the earth's spheroidal axis, Bessel's 
measurement differs from Newton's, by fully eleven miles.* The 
smaller measures are proportionably as inaccurate. No field, 
hill, or lake has an absolute mathematical figure ; but its outline 
is composed of an infinite multitude of irregular curves too 
minute for man's vision to discover, and too numerous for his 
intellect to estimate. No natural figure was ever measured with 

* Humboldt, Cosmos, Vol.1, p. 7, 156. 

287 



4 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

absolute accuracy. In regard then even to the very limited 
circle of our relations which can be measured by the foot rule, 
and the small number of our anxieties which may be resolved 
by an equation — if by mathematical accuracy be meant any thing 
more than tolerable correctness, or by mathematical demonstra- 
tion a very high degree of probability — mathematical certainty 
is all a fable. 

2. Astronomy, from the comparative simplicity of the forces 
with which it has to deal, and the approximate regularity of the 
paths of the heavenly bodies, may be regarded as the science in 
which the greatest possible certainty is attainable. It opens at 
once the widest field to the imagination, and the noblest range 
to the reason, has attracted the most exalted intellects to its 
pursuit, and has rewarded their toils with the grandest discov- 
eries. These discoveries have been grossly abused by inferior 
minds, ascribing to the discoverers of the laws of the universe, 
the glory due to their Creator; and boasting of the power of the 
human mind, as if it were capable of exploring the infinite in 
space, and of calculating the movements of the stars through 
eternity. And persons who could not calculate an eclipse to save 
their souls, have risked them upon the notion that, because astron- 
omers can do so with considerable accuracy, farmers ought to 
reject the Bible, unless its predictions can be calculated by alge- 
bra. It may do such persons good, or at least prevent them from 
doing others harm, to take a cursory view of the errors of as- 
tronomers. 

Sir John Herschell, than whom none has a better right to 
speak on this subject, and whose devotion to that noble science 
precludes all supposition of prejudice against it, devotes a chapter 
to The Errors of Astronomy ,* which he classifies and enumerates: 

"1st. External causes of Error, comprehending such as depend 
on external uncontrollable cricumstances; such as fluctuations 
of weather, which disturb the amount of refraction from its tab- 
ulated value, and being reducible to no fixed laws, induce uncer- 
tainty to the amount of their own possible magnitude. 

2d. Errors of observation; such as arise for instance from in- 
expertness, defective vision, slowness in seizing the exact instant 

* Outlines of Astronomy ■, III, §13, 140. 

288 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 5 

of the occurrence of a phenomenon, or precipitancy in anticipat- 
ing it ; from atmospheric indistinctness, insufficient optical power 
in the instrument, and the like. 

3d. The third and by far the most numerous class of errors 
arise from causes which may be deemed instrumental, and which 
may be divided into two classes. 

The first arises from an instrument not being 'what it pro- 
fesses to be, which is error of workmanship. Thus if an axis 
or pivot, instead of being as it ought, exactly cylindrical, be 
slightly flattened or elliptical — if it be not exactly concentric 
with the circle which it carries — if this circle so called be in 
reality not exactly circular — or not in one plane — if its divisions, 
intended to be precisely equi-distant, shall be in reality at une- 
qual intervals — and a hundred other things of the same sort. 

The other subdivision of instrumental errors comprehends such 
as arise from an instrument not being placed in the position it 
ought to have; and from those of its parts which are made pur- 
posely movable not being properly disposed, inter se. These are 
errors of adjustment. Some are unavoidable, as they arise from 
a general unsteadiness of the soil or building in which the in- 
struments are placed. Others again are consequences of imper- 
fect workmanship; as when an instrument once well adjusted, 
will not remain so. But the most important of this class of 
errors arise from the non-existence of natural indications other 
than those afforded by astronomical observations themselves, 
whether an instrument has, or has not, the exact position with 
respect to the horizon and the cardinal points, etc., which it 
ought to have, properly to fulfill its object. 

Now with regard to the first two classes of error it must be 
observed, that in so far as they can not be reduced to known 
laws, and thereby become the subjects of calculation and due 
allowance, they actually vitiate to their full extent the results of 
any observations in which they subsist. With regard to errors 
of adjustment, not only the possibility, but the certainty of their 
existence in every imaginable form, in all instruments, must be 
contemplated. Human hands or machines never formed a circle, 
drew a straight line, or executed a perpendicular, nor ever placed 
an instrument in perfect adjustment, unless accidentally, and then 
only during an instant of timer 

The bearing of these important and candid admissions of error 
19 289 



6 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

in astronomical observations, upon all other kinds of observations 
made by mortal eyes, and with instruments framed by human 
hands, in every department of science, is obvious. No philo- 
sophical observation or experiment is absolutely accurate, or can 
possibly be more than tolerably near the truth. The error of a 
thousandth part of an inch in an instrument will multiply itself 
into thousands and millions of miles according to the distance 
of the object, or the profundity of the calculation. Our faith in 
the absolute infaliability of scientific observers, and consequently 
in the absolute certainty of science, being thus rudely upheaved 
from its very foundations by Sir John Herschell's crowbar, we 
are prepared to learn that scientific men have made errors great 
and numerous. 

To begin at home, with our own little globe, where certainty 
is much more attainable than among distant stars; we have seen 
that astronomers of the very highest rank are by no means 
agreed as to its diameter* Its precise form is equally difficult to 
determine. Newton showed that an ellipsoid of revolution should 
differ from a sphere by a compression of 2 |q. The mean of a 
number of varying measurements of arcs, in five different places, 
would give <y|^. The pendulum measurement differs very con- 
siderably from both, and " no two sets of pendulum experiments 
give the same result."* The same liability to error, and uncer- 
tainty of the actual truth, attends the other modes of ascertain- 
ing this fundamental measurement. A very small error here 
will vitiate all other astronomical calculations; for the earth's 
radius, and the radius of its orbit, are the foot-rule and survey- 
ors' chain with which the astronomer measures the heavens. — 
But this last and most used standard, is uncertain by 360,000 
miles !f 

While such uncertainty prevails regarding the shape, size 
and distance of our own abode, we need not expect any greater 
infallibility regarding more distant bodies. Leslie's experiments 
prove to him that the moon's light is j-^^qq-q P ar * ^ a * °f *^ e sun » 
Bouguer's experiments make it only half as much; and Wollas- 
ton says it is only ^oTJoo^-t Bianchini gives 24 days 8 hours 
as the period of the rotation of Venus on her axis; Schroeter 

* Scmerville's Connection of the Physical Sciences, Section VI. 
f Cosmos, Vol. IV, p. 477. 

j The Christian Philosopher, by Thomas Dick, L.L. D., p. 82. 
290 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 7 

makes it only 23 hours 20 minutes; Sir Wm. Herschell can not 
tell which is right, or whether both are wrong. * One astrono- 
mer fixes the period of the Sun's revolution at 25 days 14 hours 
8 minutes; another at 26 days 46 minutes; another still at 24 
days 28 minutes. f Svanberg finds the cold of absolute space — the 
empty places around the stars — to be, — 58°; Arago, — 70°; Hum- 
boldt, —85°; Herschell, —132°; Poullett to be exact to a fraction, 
— 223 T ^j°, though when it gets so cold as that one would hardly be 
particular about the fraction of a degree; but Poisson thinks he 
is over 200 degrees too cold, and fixes it accurately, in his own 
opinion, at+8 y 6 Q°4 Ten or twelve years ago Mercury was believed 
to be 2.94 times the density of the Earth, and the Developement 
Theory was founded partly upon the assumed fact ; but Hansen 
finds that, compared with the Earth, it is only 1.22, and that its 
inass is only T 5 3 of what had been confidently calculated. || 

The omniscience and prescience of the human intellect have 
been largely glorified by some infidel lecturers, upon the strength 
of the accuracy with which it is possible to calculate and pre- 
dict eclipses, and to the disparagement of Bible predictions. 
And this glorification has been amazingly swollen by Le Ver- 
rier's prediction in 1846 of the discovery of the planet Neptune. 
But the prediction of some unknown motion would form a more 
correct basis for a comparison of the prophesies of science with 
those of scripture; such for instance as Immanuell Kant's pre- 
diction of the period of Saturn's rotation at 6 hours 23 minutes 
53 seconds; "which mathematical calculation of an unknown 
motion of a heavenly body," he says, u is the only prediction of 
that kind in pure Natural Philosophy, and awaits confirmation 
at a future period." It is a pity that this unique scientific pre- 
diction should not have had better luck, for the encouragement 
of other guessers; but after waiting long and vainly, for the ex- 
pected confirmation, it was finally falsified by Herschell' s discov- 
ery of spots on the surface of the planet, and observation of the 
true time, 10 hours 16 minutes 44 seconds. § This, however, was 
not his only astronomical prediction. He predicted that immense 
bodies in a transition state between planets and comets, and of 
very eccentric orbits, would be found beyond the orbit of Saturn. 

* Kendall's TJranograj>hy, p. 211. 

t Cosmos, 4-378. + lb., 3-43. I lb., 4-474. 

g Cosmos, 4, 518. Dick's Celestial Scenery, chap. Ill, Sec. 7. 

- 291 



8 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

and intersecting it, but it is scarcely necessary to say that no such 
bodies have been discovered. Uranus and Neptune have no 
cometary character whatever, their orbits are less eccentric 
than others and do not intersect, nor approach within millions 
of miles of Saturn's orbit. The verification of Le Verrier's pre- 
diction affords even a more satisfactory proof of the necessarily 
conjectural character of astronomical computations of unknown 
quantities and distances. The planet Neptune has not one half 
the mass which he had calculated; his orbit, which was calcu- 
lated as very elliptical, is nearly circular; and the error of the 
calculation of his distance, is only three hundred millions of 
miles !* 

" Let us then be candid," says Loomis, " and claim no more 
for astronomy than is reasonably due. When in 1846 Le Verrier 
announced the existence of a planet hitherto unseen, and when 
he assigned it its exact position in the heavens, and declared 
that it shone like a star of the eighth magnitude, and with a 
perceptible disc, not an astronomer of France, and scarce an as- 
tronomer in Europe, had sufficient faith in the prediction to 
prompt him to point his telescope to the heavens. But when it 
was announced that the planet had been seen at Berlin, that it 
was found within one degree of the computed place, that it was 
indeed a star of the eighth magnitude, and had a sensible disc 
— then the enthusiasm not only of the public generally, but of 
astronomers also, was even more wonderful than their former 
apathy. The sagacity of Le Verrier was felt to be almost super- 
human. Language could scarce be found strong enough to ex- 
press the general admiration. The praise then lavished upon 
Le Verrier was somewhat extravagant. The singularly close 
agreement between the observed and computed places of the planet 
vias accidental. So exact a coincidence could not reasonably 
have been anticipated. If the planet had been found even ten 
degrees from what Le Verrier assigned as its probable place, 
this discrepancy would have surprised no astronomer. The dis- 
covery would still have been one of the most remarkable events 
in the history of astronomy and Le Verrier would have merited 
the title of First Astronomer of the age."f If we should esti- 



* Cosmos, 1, 75. Loomis' Progress of Astronomy, p. 34, 40. 
j- Loomis' Progress of Astronomy, p. 34., etc. 

292 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

mate the infidel cosmogonies of third and fourth rate astrono- 
mers to be only as far from probability, as the sober computation 
of the First Astronomer of the Age was from truth, we should 
probably not err much more than three hundred millions of 
miles. 

3. Geology, one of the most recent of the sciences, and in the 
hands of infidel nurses one of the most noisy, has been supposed 
to be antichristian. The supposition is utterly unfounded. Such 
of its facts as have been well ascertained have demonstrated the 
being, wisdom, and goodness of an Almighty Creator, with irre- 
sistible evidence. Nor though a wonderful outcry has been 
raised about the opposition between the records of the rocks and 
the records of the Bible, regarding the antiquity of the earth, 
has any one yet succeeded in proving such an opposition; for the 
plain reason that neither the Bible nor geology says how old it 
is. They both say it is very old. The Bible says, "In the be- 
ginning God created the heavens and the earth;" and by the use 
which it makes of the word beginning, leaves us to infer that it 
was long before the existence of the human race.f If the ge- 
ologist could prove that the earth was six thousand millions of 
years older than Adam, it would contradict no statement of the 
Bible. The Bible reader, therefore, has no reason to question 
any well ascertained fact of geology. But when infidels come to 
us with their geological theories about the mode in which God 
made the earth, or in which the earth made itself, and how long it 
took to do it, and tell us that they have got scientific demon- 
stration from the rocks that the Bible account is false, and that 
our old traditions can not stand before the irresistible evidence 
of science, we are surely bound to look at the foundation of facts, 
and the logical superstructure, which sustain such startling con- 
clusions. 

Now it is remarkable that every infidel argument against the 
statements of the Bible, or rather against what they suppose to 
be the statements of the Bible, is based, not on the facts, but 
upon the theories, of geology. I do not know one which is based 
solely on facts and inductions from facts. Every one of them 
has a wooden leg, and goes hobbling upon an if. 

Take for example the argument most commonly used — that 

f See this proved in Tract 32, Daylight before Sunrise, p. 228. 

293 



10 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

which asserts the vast antiquity of the earth — a thing in itself 
every way likely, and not at all contrary to Scripture, if it could 
be scientifically proved. But how does our infidel geologist set 
about his work of proving that the earth is any given age, 
say six thousand millions of years ? A scientific demonstration 
must rest upon facts — well ascertained facts. It admits of no 
suppositions. Now what are the facts given to solve the prob- 
lem of the earth's age? The geologist finds a great many layers 
of rocks, one above the other, evidently formed below the water, 
some of them out of the fragments of former rocks, containing 
bones, shells, and casts of fishes and tracks of the feet of birds, 
made when these rocks were in the state of soft mud, and al- 
together several miles thick. He has a great multitude of such 
facts before him, but they are all of this character. Not one of 
them gives him the element of time. They announce to him a 
succession of events, such as successive generations of fishes and 
plants; but not one of them tells how long these generations 
lived. The condition _of the world was so utterly different then, 
from what it is now, that no inference can be drawn from the 
length of the lives of existing races, which are generally also of 
different species. The "utmost any man can say, in such a case, 
is, / suppose, for there is no determinate element of time in the 
statement of the problems, and so no certain time can appear in 
the solution. 

Here is a problem exactly similar. A certain house is found 
to be built with ten courses of hewn stone in the basement, 
forty courses of brick in the first story, thirty-six courses in the 
second, thirty-two in the third ; with a roof of nine inch rafters 
covered with inch boards, and an inch and a half layer of coal 
tar and gravel; how long was it in building? Would not any 
school-boy laugh at the absurdity of attempting such a problem? 
He would say, "How can I tell unless I know whence the ma- 
terials came, how they were conveyed, how many workmen were 
employed, and how much each could do in a day? If the 
brick had to be made by hand, the lumber all dressed with the 
handsaw and jack-plane, the materials all hauled fifty miles in 
an ox-cart, the brick carried up by an Irishman in a hod, and 
the work done by an old, slow-going, jobbing contractor who 
could only afford to pay three or four men at a time, — they 
would not got through in a year. But if the building stone and 
2S4 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. \\ 

sand were found in excavating the cellar, the brick were made 
by steam and came by railroad, a good master builder, with 
steam saw and planing mills, steam hoists, and a strong force of 
workmen, would run it up in three weeks." 

So our geologist ought to say; "I do not know either the 
source of the materials of the earth's strata, nor the means by 
which they were conveyed to their present positions; therefore 
I can not tell the time required for their formation. If the crust 
of the earth was created originally of solid granite, and the 
materials of the strata were ground down by the slow action of 
frost and rain, and conveyed to the ocean by the still slower agen- 
cy of rivers and torrents — hundreds of millions of ages would not 
effect the work. But if the earth was created in such a shape as 
would rationally be considered the best adapted for future stra- 
tification — if its crust consisted of the various elements of which 
granite and other rocks are composed; if these materials were 
ejected in a granular or comminuted form, and in vast quanti- 
ties by submarine volcanoes generated by the chemical action 
of these elements upon each other; and if, after being diffused 
by the currents of the ocean, and consolidated by its vast pres- 
sure, the underlying strata were baked and melted and crystal- 
lized into granite * — a very few centuries would suffice. Until 
these indispensible preliminaries are settled, geology can make 
no calculations of the length of time occupied by the formation 
of the strata." 

But instead of saying so, he imagines that God chose to make 
the earth out of the most impossible materials, by the most un- 
suitable agencies, and with the most inadequate forces; and 
that therefore a long time was needed for the work. In short, 
to revert to our illustration of the house-building, he supposes 
that Almighty God built the earth with the ox-team, and em- 
ployed only the same force in erecting the building, which he now 
uses for doing little jobbing repairs. Almost all geological com- 
putations of time are made upon the supposition that only the 
same agents were at work then which we see now, that they only 
wrought with the same degree of force, and that they produced 
just the same effects in such a widely different condition of the 

* See the possibility of such a source of volcanic action, of such a formation of 
plutonic rocks, proved bv Lyell. Pr»KCij)Zcs, chs. XXXII & XII. 

295 



12 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

earth as tnen prevailed. It takes a year say to deposit mucl 
enough at the bottom of the sea to make an inch of rock now ; 
and if mud ivas deposited no faster when the geological strata 
were formed, they are as many years old as there are inches in 
eight or nine miles depth of strata. But this is not the scien- 
tific proof we were promised. How does he prove that mud 
was deposited at just the same rate then as now? The very ut- 
most he can say is that it is a very probable supposition. I can 
prove it a very improbable supposition. But it is enough for my 
present purpose to point out that, probable or improbable, it is 
only supposition. No proof is given or can possibly be given 
for it. Any conclusion drawn from such premises can be only 
a supposition too. And so the whole fabric of geological chro- 
nology, upon the stability of which so many infidels are risking 
the salvation of their souls, and beneath which they are boast- 
ing that they will bury the Bible beyond the possibility of a 
resurrection, vanishes into a mere unproved notion^ based upon 
an if. 

It is truly astonishing, that any sober minded person should 
allow himself to be shaken in his religious convictions by the 
alleged results of a science so unformed and imperfect, as geol- 
ogists themselves acknowledge their favorite science to be. "The 
dry land upon our globe occupies only one fourth of its whole 
superficies. All the rest is sea. How much of this fourth part 
have geologists been able to examine? and how small seems to 
be the area of stratification which they have explored? We 
venture to say not one fiftieth part of the ivhole."* "Abstract or 
speculative geology — were it a perfect science, would present a 
history of the globe from its origin and formation, through all 
the changes it has undergone, up to the present time; describing 
its external appearance, its plants and animals, at each succes- 
sive period. As yet, geology is the mere aim to arrive at such 
knowledge; and when we consider how difficult it is to trace the 
history of a nation, even over a few centuries, we can not be sur- 
prised at the small progress geologists have made in tracing the 
history of the earth through the lapse of ages. To ascertain 
the history of a nation possessed of written records is compara- 
tively easy?' but when these are wanting, we must examine the 

* Sir David Brewster, K. H., P. C. L., F. K. S., More Worlds than One, p. 56. 
296 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH, 13 

• 

ruins of their cities and monuments, and judge of them as a 
people from the size and structure of their buildings, and from 
the remains of art found in them. This is often a perplexing, 
always an arduous task; much more so is it to decipher the earth's 
history."* "The canoes, for example, and stone hatchets found 
in our peat bogs afford an insight into the rude arts and manners 
of the earliest inhabitants of our island; the buried coin fixes 
the date of some Roman emperor; the ancient encampment indi- 
cates the districts once occupied by invading armies, and the 
former method of constructing military defenses; the Egyptian 
mummies throw light on the art of embalming, the rites of 
sepulture, or the average stature of ancient Egypt. This class of 
memorials yields to no other in authenticity, but it constitutes a 
small part only of the resources on which the historian relies ; 
whereas in geology it forms the only kind of evidence which is at 
our command. For this reason we must not expect to obtain a 
full and connected account of any series of events beyond the 
reach of history." -f •' There are no calculations more doubtful 
than those of the geologist."! In fact, no truly scientific geolo- 
gist pretends that it stands on the same level with any authentic 
history, much less with the Bible record; inasmuch as the dis- 
covery of a single new fact may overturn the whole theory. 
"It furnishes us with no clue by which to unravel the unap- 
proachable mysteries of creation. These mysteries belong to 
the wondrous Creator, and to him only. We attempt to theorize 
upon them, and to reduce them to law, and all nature rises up 
against us in our presumptuous rebellion. A stray splinter 
of cone bearing wood — a fish's skull or tooth — the vertebra 
of a reptile — the humerus of a bird — the jaw of a quadruped — 
all, any of these things, weak and insignificant as they may 
seem, become in such a quarrel too strong for us and our theory 
■ — the puny fragment in the grasp of truth forms as irresistible 
a weapon as the dry bone did in that of Sampson of old; and 
our slaughtered sophisms lie piled up, "heaps upon heaps," 
before it.§ 

The history of the progress of geology furnishes abundant 
proof of the truth of these admissions of weakness and fall i- 

* Rudiments of Geology, W. & R. Chambers, p. 10. 

f Lyell's Principles of Geology, p. 3. % Miller, Old Red Sandstone, p. 25. 

\ Hugh. Miller, Footprints of the Creator, p. 313. 



14 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

bility. The history of its theories, like that of their framers, 
begins with their birth and ends with their burial. Each new 
theory placed the tombstone upon the preceding, and inscribed 
it with the brief record of the antediluvian, "and he died." A 
busy, merry time they must have had with their Wernerian, 
Huttonian, and Diluvian hypotheses ; not to mention the Hutch- 
insonian theory, the animal spirits flowing from the sun, the 
vegetative power of stones, and other sage and serious facts and 
theories, theological and philosophical, invented to account for 
the world's creation. "No theory," says Lyell, "could be so far 
fetched or fantastical as not to attract some followers, provided 
it fell in with the popular notion." "Some of the most extra- 
vagant systems were invented or controverted by men of ac- 
knowledged talent." A more amusing exhibition of philosoph- 
ical absurdity can not be found than those chapters which he 
devotes to "The Historical Progress of Geology,"' 55 ' unless per- 
haps the scientific discussions of the erudite acquaintances of 
Lemuel Gulliver. 

Let it not be supposed that the progress of inductive science, 
and the prevalence of the Baconian philosophy have banished* 
absurdities and contradictions from the sphere of Geology. It 
would require a man of considerable learning to find three ge- 
ologists agreed either in their facts or in their theories. In a 
general way, indeed, we have the Catastrophists, with Hugh Mil- 
ler, overwhelming the earth with dire convulsions in the geo- 
logical eras, and upheaving the more conservative Lyell and the 
Progressionists; who affirm that all things continue as they were 
from the beginning of the world. And there is perhaps a general 
agreement now that the underlying primitive rocks, so called, 
are not primitive at all, as geologists thought twenty years ago; 
but like the foundations of a Chicago house, have been put in 
long after the building was finished and occupied. But then 
comes the question how they were inserted — whether as Elie de 
Beaumont thinks, the mountains were upheaved by starts, lever 
fashion, or as Lyell affirms, very gradually, and imperceptibly, 
like the elevation of a brick house by screws ?f Nor is there 
the least likelihood of any future agreement among them; inas- 
much as they can not agree either as to the thickness of the 

* Principles, Chapa. Ill and IV. f lb., Chap. XI. 

293 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 15 

earth's solid crust which is to be lifted, or the force by which it is 
to be done ? Hopkins proves by astronomical observation that it 
is 800 miles thick. Lyell affirms that at twenty-four miles deep 
there can be no solid crust, for the temperature of the earth in- 
creases 1° for every 45 feet, and at that depth the heat is great 
enough to melt iron and almost every known substance. But 
then there is a difference between philosophers about this last 
test of solidity — those who believe in Wedgewood's Pyrometer, 
which was the infallible standard twenty years ago, asserting 
that the heat of melted iron is 21,000° F ; while Professor Dan- 
iells demonstrates by another infallible instrument that it is only 
2,786° F;* which is rather a difference. In one case the earth's 
crust wo]jW be over two hundred miles thick, in the other 
twenty-four. But then comes the great question, what is below 
the granite? and a very important one for any theory of the 
earth. It evidently underlies the whole foundation of specula- 
tive geology, whether we assume with De Beaumont and Hum- 
boldt, that " the whole globe, with the exception of a thin envel- 
ope, much thinner in proportion than the shell of an egg, is a fused 
mass, kept fluid by heat — a heat of 450,000° F., at the center, Cor- 
dier calculates — but constantly cooling, and contracting its dimen- 
sions;" and occasionally cracking and falling in, and "squeezing 
upward large portions of the mass;" "thus producing those 
folds or wrinkles which we call mountain chains;" or with Davy 
and Lyell, that the heat of such a boiling ocean below would 
melt the solid crust, like ice from the surface of boiling water — 
and with it the whole theory of the primeval existence of the 
earth in a state of igneous fusion, its gradual cooling down into 
continents and mountains of granite, the gradual abrasion of the 
granite into the mud and sand which formed the stratified rocks, 
and all the other brilliant hypotheses which have sparked out 
of this great internal fire. Instead of an original central heat 
he supposes that "we may perhaps refer the heat of the interior 
to chemical changes constantly going on in the earth's crust."f 
Now if the very foundations of the science are in such a state 
of fusion, and floating on a perhaps, would it not be wise to 
allow them to solidify a little before a man risks the salvation of 
his soul upon them? 

* Principles, p. 530. f Ib -> chap. XXXI. 

299 



16 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

Multitudes of the alleged facts of infidel geologists are as apocry- 
phal as their theories. Thus in a recent ponderous quarto volume, 
the. production of half a dozen philosophers, this identical im- 
possible theory — of the cooling of the earth's crust down to 
solidity, while an irresistible central heat remains below — is 
presented to the world as an ascertained fact; we are informed 
of the discovery of a human skull 57,000 years old, in good pres- 
ervation] asked to believe that two tiers of cypress snags could 
not be deposited in the delta of the Mississippi in less than 11,- 
400 years; and to calculate that the delta of the Nile must have 
been a great many ages in growing to its present size, because 
it is quite certain that for the last 3,000 years it has never 
grown at all* 

Nor have even the most respectable geologists failed to estab- 
lish their fallibility, and to give ample employment to each 
other in correcting their omissions, mistakes and blunders; 
as a perusal of our scientific journals will abundantly prove. It 
were easy to fill a volume with such mistakes of geologists, but 
my limits restrict me to a single specimen, taken at random from 
the first scientific magazine which comes to my hand — the last 
number of Silliman's Journal; in a review of f " The Geology 
of North America; by Julius Marcoe, U. S. Geologist, and Pro- 
fessor of Geology in the Federal Polytechnic School of Switzer- 
land; quarto, with maps and plates." 

"The author describes the mountain systems of North Amer- 
ica as he supposes they must be, according to the theoretical 
views of Eiie de Beaumont." "Thus one single fossil — that one 
a species of pine, and only very much resembling the Pinites 
Fleurotti of Dr. Monguett, establishes — a connection between 
the New Red of France, and that of America. This is a very 
strong word for a geologist to use on evidence so small, and so 
uncertain, with the fate of 4,000 or 5,000 feet of rock at stake, 
and the beds beneath, containing "perhaps Belemnites." The 
prudent observer would have said, establishes nothing ; and such 
is the fact." " On such evidence a region over the Rocky 
Mountains, which is 1,000 miles from North to South, and 800 



* Types of IlanUnd, 329, 338, 337, 335. 

•j- The American Journal of Science and Art, edited by Profs, Silliman & Dana, vol. 
XXVI, p. 235, 350. 
300 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 17 

miles from East to West, is for the most part colored in the 
maps as Triassic. Such a region would take in quite a respect- 
able part of the continent of Europe." "We now know beyond 
any reasonable doubt, that all the country from the Platte to the 
British Possessions, and from the Mississippi to the Black Hills, 
is occupied by Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks. And as regards 
the region from the Platte southward to the Red River, very far 
the largest part is known to be not Triassic, while it is possible 
the Trias may occur in some parts of it." " It is unfortunate in 
its bearing on the progress of geological science to have false 
views about some 500,000 miles of territory, and much more be- 
sides, spread widely abroad through respectable journals, and 
transactions of distinguished European Societies." So much 
for the certainties of geology. 

If space permitted, it would be easy to go over the whole cir- 
cle of the sciences, and show similar uncertainties in them all. 
We have considered the three which are supposed to be the 
most positive. It is worthy of notice that the uncertainties of 
science increase just in proportion to our interest in it. It is 
very uncertain about all my dearest concerns, and very positive 
about what does not concern me. The greatest certainty is at- 
tainable in pure mathematics, which regards only ideal quantities 
and figures; but biology — the science of life — is utterly obscure. 
The astronomer can calculate with considerable accuracy the 
movements of distant planets, with which we have no inter- 
course; but where is the meteorologist bold enough to predict the 
wind and weather of next week, on which my crops, my ships, 
my life may depend? Heat, light and electricity may be pretty 
accurately measured and registered, but what physician can 
measure the strength of the malignant virus which is sapping the 
life of his patient? The chemist can thoroughly analyze any 
foreign substance, but the disease of his own body which is 
bringing him to the grave, he can neither weigh, measure nor 
remove. Science is very positive about distant stars and remote 
ages, but stammers and hesitates about the very life of its pro- 
fessors. 

4. Such, then, are a few of the uncertainties, imperfections, 
and positive and egregious errors of science at its fountain head. 
To the actual investigator infallible certainty of any scientific 
fact is hardly possible, error exceedingly probable, and gross 

301 



18 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

blunders in fact and theory by no means uncommon. But how 
greatly diluted must the modified and hesitating conviction, pos- 
sible to an actual observer, become, when, as is generally the 
case, a man is not an actual observer himself, but learns his 
science at school. Such a person leaves the ground of demon- 
strative science, and stands upon faith. The first question then 
to be proposed to one whose demonstrative certainty of the 
truths of physical science has disgusted him with a religion 
received on testimony and faith, is, How have you reached this 
demonstrative certainty in matters of science? Are you quite 
sure that your certainty rests not upon the testimony of fallible 
and erring philosophers, but solely upon your own personal ob- 
servations and experiments? 

To take only the initial standard of astronomical measure- 
ments — the earth's distance from the sun. Have you personally 
measured the earth's radius, observed the transit of Venus in 
1769, from Lapland and Tahiti at the same time, calculated 
the sun's parrallax, and the eccentricity of the earth's orbit? 
Would you profess yourself competent to take even the prelimi- 
nary observation for fixing the instruments for such a reckoning? 
Were you ever within a thousand miles of the proper positions 
for making such observations? Or have you been necessitated 
to accept this primary measure, upon the accuracy of which all 
subsequent astronomical measurers depend, merely upon hear- 
say and testimony, and subject to all those contingencies of error 
and prejudice, and mistakes of copyists, which, in your opinion, 
render the Bible so unreliable in matters of religion? 

Or to come down to earth. You are a student of the stone 
book, with its enduring records graven in the rock forever; and 
perhaps have satisfied yourself that " under the ponderous strata 
of geological science the traditionary mythology and cosmogony of 
the Hebrew poet has found an everlasting tomb." But how many 
volumes of this stone book have you perused personally? You 
are quite indignant perhaps that theologians and divines, who 
have no practical or personal knowledge of geology, should pre- 
sume to investigate its claims. Have you personally visited the 
various localities in South America, Siberia, Australia, India, 
Britain, Italy, and the South Seas, where the various formations 
are exhibited; and have you personally excavated from their 
matrices the various fossils which form the hieroglyphics of the 
302 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. |9 

science? Have you, in fact, ever seen one in a thousand of 
these minerals and fossils in situ? Or are you dependent on 
the tales of travelers, the specimens of collectors, the veracity 
of authors, the accuracy of lecturers, aided by maps of ideal 
stratifications, in rose-pink, brimstone-yellow, and indigo-blue, 
for your profound and glowing convictions of the irresistible 
force of experimental science, and of the shadowy vagueness of 
a religion dependent upon human testimony? 

To come down considerably in our demands and confine our- 
selves to the narrow limits of the laboratory. You are a chem- 
ist perhaps, and proud, as most chemists justly are, of the accu- 
racy attainable in that most palpable and demonstrative science. 
But how much of it is experimental science to you? How many 
of the 942 substances treated of in Turner's Chemistry have you 
analyzed? One half? One tenth? Would you face the laughter 
of a college class to-morrow upon the experiment of taking nine 
out of the nine hundred, reducing them to their primitive elements, 
giving an accurate analysis of their component parts, and combin- 
ing them in the various forms described in that, or any other book, 
whose statements, because experimentally certain, have filled you 
with a dislike of Bible truths, which you must receive upon tes- 
timony? In fact, do you know any thing worth mention of the 
facts of science upon your own knowledge, except those of the 
trade by which you make your living? 

Or, after all your boasting about scientific and demonstrative 
certainty, have you been obliged to receive the certainties of 
science "upon faith, and at second hand, and upon the word of 
another;" and to save your life you could not tell half the 
time who that other is, by naming the discoverers of half the 
.scientific truths you believe ? What ! are you dependent on 
hearsay and probability for any little science you possess, having 
in fact never obtained any personal demonstration or experience 
of its first principles and measurements, nor being capable of 
doing so? Then let us hear no more cant from you about the 
uncertainty of a religion dependent upon testimony, and the 
certainties of experimental science. Whatever certainty may 
be attainable by scientific men — and we have seen that is not 
much — it is very certain you have got none of it. The very 
best you can have to wrap yourself in is a second hand as- 
surance, grievously torn by rival schools, and needing to be 

303 



20 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

patched every month by later discoveries. Your science, such 
as it is, rests solely upon faith in the testimony of philosophers, 
often contradictory and improbable, and always fallible and un- 
certain. 

5. Nor would you cease to be dependent upon faith could you 
personally make all the observations and calculations of demon- 
strative science. The knowledge of these facts does not consti- 
tute science; it is merely the brick pile containing the materials 
for the building of science. Science is knowledge systematized. 
But if the parts of nature were not arranged after a plan, 
the knowledge of them could not be formed into a system. — < 
Chaos is unintelligible. Our minds are so constituted that we 
look for order and regularity, and can not comprehend confusion. 
We possess this expectation of order before we begin to learn 
science, and without 4t would never begin the search after a 
system of knowledge. All scientific experiment is but a search 
after order, and order is only another name for intelligence — for 
God. Deprive us of this fundamental faith in cause and effect, 
order and regularity — of reason, in short — and science becomes 
as impossible to man as to the ourang outang. All science, even 
in its frst principles, rests upon faith. 

II. We may now proceed to inquire whether or not faith, 
which we have found so prevalent even among those who repu- 
diate it, is a thing to be ashamed of; or if it be a sufficiently 
certain and reliable basis for human life and conduct. 

1. We are met at the very outset by the great fact that God 
has so constituted the world and every thing in it, that in all 
the great concerns of life we are necessitated to depend on faith; 
without any possibility of reaching absolute certainty regarding 
the result of any ordinary duty. We sow without any certainty 
of a crop, or that we may live to reap it. We harvest, but our 
barns may be burned down. We sell our property for bank- 
bills, but who dare say they will ever be paid in specie? We 
start on a journey to a distant city, but even though you insure 
your life, who will insure that fire, or flood, or railroad collision 
may not send you to the land whence there is no return? 

Science is the child of yesterday; but from the beginning of 

the world men have lived by faith. Before science was born, 

Cain tilled his ground without any mathematical demonstration 

that he should reap a crop. Abel fed his flock without any 

304 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 21 

scientific certainty that he should live to enjoy its produce; 
and Tubal Cain forged axes and swords without any assur- 
ance that he should not be plundered of his wages. All 
the experience of mankind proves that experimental certainty 
regarding the most important business of this life is impossible. 
By what process of philosophical induction is religion alone put 
beyond the sphere of faith and hope? If religious duties are 
not binding on us, unless religion be scientifically demonstrated, 
then neither are moral obligations; for these two can not be 
separated. Is it really so, that none but scientific men are 
bound to tell truth and pay their debts, and that a person may 
not fear God and go to heaven unless he has graduated at col- 
lege? The common sense of mankind declares that we live by 
faith, not by science. 

2. We demand the knowledge of truths of which science is 
profoundly ignorant. Science is but an outlying nook of my 
farm, which I may neglect and yet have bread to eat. Faith is 
my house in which all my dearest interests are treasured. Of 
all the great problems and precious interests which belong to 
me as a mortal or an immortal, science knows nothing. I ask 
her whence I came ? and she points to her pinions scorched over 
the abyss of primeval fire, her eyes blinded by its awful glare, 
and remains silent. I inquire what I am? but the strange and 
questioning J is a mystery which she can neither analyze nor 
measure. I tell her of the voice of conscience within me — she 
never heard it, and does not pretend to understand its oracles. 
I tell her of my anxieties about the future — she is learned only 
in the past. I inquire how I may be happy hereafter — but hap- 
piness is not a scientific term, and she can not tell me how to be 
happy here! Poor, blind science! 

3. All our dearest interests lie beyond the domains of science, 
in the regions of faith. Science treats of things — faith is con- 
fidence in persons. Take away the persons, and of what value 
are the things? The world becomes at once a vast desert, a 
dreary solitude, and more miserable than any of its former in- 
habitants the lonely wretch who is left to mourn over the graves 
of all his former companions — the last man. Solitary science 
were awful. Could I prosecute the toils of study alone, without 
companion or friend to share my labors? Would I study eter- 
nally with no object, and for no use; none to be benefited, none 

20 305 



22 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

to be gratified by my discoveries? Though you hung maps on 
every tree, made every mountain range a museum, bored mines 
in every valley, and covered every plain with specimens, made 
Vesuvius my crucible, and opened the foundations of the earth 
to my view — yet would the discovery of a single fresh human foot- 
print in the sand fill my heart with more true hope of happiness, 
than an endless eternity of solitary science. I can live, and 
love, and be happy without science, but not without companion- 
ship, whose bond is Faith. 

Faith is the condition of all the happiness you can know on 
earth. Law, order, government, civilization, and family life, de- 
pend not upon science, but upon confidence in moral character 
— upon faith. In its sunshine alone can happiness grow. It is 
faith sends you out in the morning to your work, nerves your 
arms through the toils of the day, brings you home in the even- 
ing, gathers your wife and your children around your table, 
inspires the oft repeated efforts of the little prattler to ascend 
your knee, clasps his chubby arms around your neck, looks with 
most confiding innocence in your eye, and puts forth his little 
hand to catch your bread, and share your cup. Undoubting faith 
is happiness even here below. Need you marvel, then, that you 
must be converted from your pride of empty, barren science, 
and casting yourself with all your powers into the arms of faith, 
become as a little child before you can enter into the kingdom 
of heaven? 

4. But religion is not founded upon faith as distinct from ob- 
servation and experiment. It is the most experimental of all 
the sciences. There is less of theory, and more of experience 
in it than in any other science. Its faith is all practical. It is 
a great mistake to suppose that faith is the opposite pole of ex- 
perience. On the contrary, experience is just the fruit which 
ripens from the blossom of faith. We have seen how an un- 
derlying conviction of the existence of an intelligent planner 
and upholder of the laws of nature is the source of all scien- 
tific experiment, and systematized knowledge. A similar under- 
lying conviction of the existence of a moral governor of the 
world is the source of all religious experience. He that cometh 
to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of 
those that diligently seek him. But this fundamental axiom 
believed, long trains of experience follow : of every one of which 
306 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 23 

you can be, and actually are, infinitely more certain than of 
any fact of physical science. Your eyes, your ears, your touch, 
your instruments, your reason, may be deceived — but your con- 
sciousness can not. If your soul is filled with joy, that is a fact. 
You know it, and are as sure of it as you are that the sun 
shines. If you feel miserable, you are so. A sense of neglect- 
ed duty, a consciousness that you have done wrong and are 
displeased with yourself for it; a certainty that God is displeased 
with you for wrong doing, and that he will show hig displeasure 
by suitable punishment; the tenacious grasp of vicious habits 
on your body and soul, and the fearful thought that by the law 
of your nature these vipers which you vainly struggle to shake 
off, will for ever keep involving you more closely in their 
cursed coils — these are facts of your experience. You are as 
certain that they give you disquiet of mind, when you entertain 
them, as that the sea rages in a tempest; and that you can no 
more prevent their entrance, nor compel their departure, nor 
calm nor drown the anxiety they occasion, than you can prevent 
the rising of the tempest, dismiss the thunder-storm, or drown 
Etna in your wineglass. Of these primary facts of moral sci- 
ence, and of others like them, you possess the most absolute 
and infallible certainty from your own consciousness. They re- 
sult from the inertia of moral matter, which, when put into a 
state of disturbance has no power of bringing itself to rest, 
expressed in the formula, There is no peace, saith my God, to 
the loicked* 

Let us now go out of your own experience, as you must do in 
every other science, into the region of observation, and study a 
few of the other phenomena of religion. Your comrade, Jones,, 
has taken to drinking of late, and also to going with you to 
Sunday lectures, and in the evening to other places of amuse- 
ment. He has, however, been warned that the next time he 
comes drunk to the workshop he will be discharged; and as he 
is a clever young fellow, and knows more about the Bible than 
you, having gone to Sabbath-School when a boy, and is able 
to use up the saints cleverly, you would be sorry to lose his 
company. So you set on him to go with you to hear a temper- 
ance lecture, hoping he may be induced to take the pledge; 

* Isaiah 48, 22. 

307 



24 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

for if he does not you fear he will soon lie in the gutter. He 
curses you and himself too, if ever he listens to any such stuff; 
and refuses to go. You can easily gather a hundred other illus- 
trations of the great law of the moral repulsion between vice 
and truth, expressed in the following formula: This is the con- 
demnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved 
darkness leather than light, because their deeds were evil. For 
every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the 
light lest his deeds should be reproved* Your life, however, is 
but a long illustration of this principle. Have you not willingly 
remained in ignorance of the contents of the Bible, because you 
dislike its commands? 

There is another fact of the same science — there, in the gutter 
before you, wallowing in his own vomit, covered with rags, be- 
smeared with mud, smelling worse than a hog, his bruised 
and bleeding mouth unable to articulate the obscenities and 
curses he tries to utter. "Is it possible that can be Bill Brown! 
"Why only three years ago we worked at the same bench. It was 
he who introduced me to the Sunday Institute; as clever a 
workman and as jovial a comrade as I ever knew, but would 
get on a spree now and again. He had a good father and mo- 
ther, got considerable schooling, had good wages, got married to 
a clever girl and had two fine children. Is it possible he could 
make such a beast of himself in such a short time?" Yes, quite 
possible, and more, quite certain. Not only in his case, but in 
all others, the law of moral gravitation is universal and infalli- 
ble. Evil men and seducers wax worse and worse.f The degra- 
dation may not always be in this precise form, nor always as 
speedy — as all heavy bodies do not fall to the same place, nor with 
like rapidity. But it is always as certain and always as deep, 
and will one day be far more public. Fix it firmly in your 
mind. It concerns you more than all the science you will ever 
know. You too are in the course of sin and you know it. You 
have already begun to fall. 

Come again into this room. "What, into a prayer meeting? 
I don't go to such places." But, if you want to study the phe- 
nomena of religion scientifically, you should go to such places; 
just as if you want to study geology you should go to the places 

* John, 3d chap. f2 Timothy, 3d ch. Bead the whole chapter. t 

308 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. * 25 

where the strata are exposed to view. I do not ask you to 
speak and ask people to pray for you, but only to look on and 
listen. If you are a philosopher I wish you to cease dogmatiz- 
ing about fanaticism and enthusiasm and the ignorance and 
credulity of believers, at least until you philosophically examine 
the evidence upon which they believe. You can set aside, if 
you please, their unfounded beliefs concerning matters beyond 
their capacity, and also their confident hopes for futurity. What 
I wish you to examine is their actual experience of religion, as 
they severally relate it. For as we have seen, the facts of 
consciousness are just as certain, and as ascertainable, as the 
facts discovered by our senses; and there is no reason in the 
world why we should not pursue the study of religion in the 
same way that we gain a knowledge of science ; namely, by col- 
lecting and studying the facts accumulated by those who have 
made experiments, and have obtained a practical knowledge of 
the matter. 

There are here, as you see, a great number of religious ex- 
perimenters. They are also of very various conditions of life, 
and of various degrees of education. Many of them are more- 
over well known to you, so that you are in a favorable position 
for forming a fair judgment of their discoveries. There is your 
comrade Smith, Hopkins who does the hauling for your estab- 
lishment, Lawyer Hammond, Professor Edwards whose chemical 
lectures you attend, Dr. Lawrence who lectured before the Ly- 
ceum last winter, Mr. Heidenberger who wrote a series of arti- 
cles on Compte's Positive Philosophy for the Investigator, Mrs. 
Bridgman, your Aunt Polly who nursed you during your typhoid 
fever, and a great many others whom you know quite well. — 
Professor Edwards leads in prayer, and gives a brief address. 
You never dreamt that he was hoaxing you when he told you 
of his chemical experience; have you any reason to offer for be- 
lieving that he now solemnly and in the presence of God, lies 
to you and this assembly, when he tells you of the peace he has 
found in believing in Christ, and the happiness he experiences 
in uniting with his brethren in the worship of God? Or is he 
more liable to error in noting the fact of bis mental joy or sor- 
row, than in observing the effect of the extraordinary ray in 
double refraction? If not, the fact that he has felt this reli- 

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26 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

gious experience, is just as certain as the fact, that he has seen 
polarized light. 

There is your comrade Smith, whom you have known for years, 
actually got up to speak in meeting. You are surprised; but 
listen: "Neighbors and friends, most of you know I never 
cared much about religion, and was often given to take more 
liquor than was good for me, and then I would fight and curse 
awful bad. I knew as well as any body that it was n't right, 
and always felt bad after a spree, and many a time I said I 
would turn over a new leaf and be good. But it was all no use, 
for as soon as any of the fellows would come around after me, I al- 
ways went along with them, till at last I gave it up, and said it was 
no use to try. Still, whenever any of my acquaintances died, I 
felt scared like; and I kept away as far as I could from churches 
and preachers and such like, because I could not bear to think 
about God and judgment to come. Well, about five weeks ago 
my little Minnie set on me one Sabbath morning to carry her 
to church, and to please the little creature — for she is as pert a 
darling as you could see anywhere — I told my wife to get her 
ready and we would go. She seemed as if she would cry, and 
kept talking to herself all the way. When we got into the 
church the singing almost upset me, for I had not been to a 
church since I was a little fellow, just before father and mother 
died. But it seemed as if it was the same tune, and as if the 
tune brought them all back, and I saw them again and all the 
family, and heard mother sing as she used to, and I forgot 
church and every thing, and thought I was a little fellow play- 
ing about on the floor just as I used to do when I was a happy 
child. When they stopped I was so sorry, and wished I could just 
be as innocent and as happy as I was then. Well, it seemed 
like the preacher had been reading my thoughts, for he gave 
out for his text, Verily, verily I say unto you, unless a man he 
horn again Tie can not see the kingdom of God. He began to 
preach how Jesus can give us new hearts and save us from our 
sins; that his blood cleanses from all sin; that he is able to 
save to the uttermost all that come unto God through him. The 
tears came into my. eyes, and I could hardly keep my mouth 
shut till I got out. When I got home I knelt down and cried to 
Jesus to save me from my sins; and my wife prayed too, and 
310 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 27 

we cried for mercy. The Lord heard us, and I felt light and 
happy, and I went to church again, and sung with the rest. — 
And the best of it is, the Lord delivered me from the drink; as 
I told a man who asked where I was going to-day, and I told 
him I was going to prayer-meeting, for I had got religion now. 
He said there were a great many religions, and most of them 
wrong, and a great many people said all religion was only a 
notion, and preaching only nonsense. I says to him, 'Look 
here, stranger, do you see that tavern there?' 'Yes,' says he. 
'Well,' says I, 'do you see me?' 'I do, of course,' says he. — 
'Well,' says I, 'every little fellow in these parts knows that so 
long as Tom Smith had a quarter in his pocket he could never 
pass that tavern without having a drink. All the men in Jeffer- 
son could not stop him. Now look here,' says I, 'there is my 
week's wages, and I can go past, and thank God I do n't feel 
the least like drinking, for the Lord Jesus has saved me from 
it. If you call that a notion, it is a mighty powerful notion, 
and it is a notion that has put clothes on my children's backs, 
and plenty of good food on my table, and songs of praise to the 
Lord in my mouth. That's a fact, stranger. Glory be to God 
for it. And I would recommend you to come to prayer meet- 
ing with me, and maybe you would get religion too. A great 
many people are getting religion now.' " 

His last remark is certainly very true. There are so many, 
and of such various characters and grades of life, and in so 
many places, that every reader can easily find several Tom 
Smiths of his own acquaintance, whose conversions display all 
the essential facts of this case, and prove that: 

5. The facts of religious experience are better attested, and 
more unobjectionable than those of any other science. 

Unless they can be shown to be unreasonable or impossible, 
we are bound to receive them, when presented by the experi- 
mentists who have discovered them, though personally we may 
not have any such experience; just as we believe the chemists, 
or the astronomers who relate their discoveries which personally 
we have not observed. But the facts of religion are by no means 
unreasonable. They can not be shown to contradict any known 
law of the human mind. It is true they are mysterious. But 
so are the facts of physical science — heat, light, electricity, grav- 
itation. Of either, we mav be quite certain that such phenom- 

311 



28 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

ena exist, and utterly ignorant of the mode of their operation. It 
were as utterly unphxlosophical to deny that Almighty God could, 
impart nervous energy to the languid limbs of your sick neigh 
bor, because you are ignorant of its origin and means of trans- 
mission, as to deny that God could impart spiritual electricity to 
his paralyzed soul, because you are ignorant of the mode in 
•which he bestows it. And ignorance is all that you can plead 
in this case. You must just admit that having tried an experi- 
ment which you have not, your religious friend has a right to 
know more than you. 

Moreover-, the facts of religion are presented for belief upon the 
most abundant and reliable testimony. In physical science you 
must rely on the testimony of a very few observers — the great 
bulk even of scientific men having no opportunity of testing the 
facts themselves, and being well satisfied if any fact is confirmed 
by the testimony of two or three philosophers — and this testi- 
mony often contradictory, and always fallible, as the discordant 
results of their experiments prove. But here you have a great 
multitude of experimentists, in every city and village of the land, 
of every variety of intellect and education, prosecuting the same 
course of experiments, and all arriving at the same results. — . 
They do not all confess the same sins, but they all felt the power 
of some sin, and felt miserable in their guilt. And however they 
may differ in their external circumstances, their inward consti- 
tution, or in their views of the outward part of religion, there is 
no difference among them about the great facts of their reli- 
gious experience. They all believed the faithful saying that 
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, cried to God 
for mercy through him, and received peace of mind, grace to 
live a new life, and to delight in the worship of God. Do you 
know any science which has been prosecuted by one hundredth 
part of this number of inquirers? Which has been confirmed 
by one thousandth part of this number of experimenters ? Or 
any experiment tried with such uniform and unfailing success 
as this, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be 
saved 1* "Why then do you hesitate to admit the correctness of 
these facts? Is it because you perceive they lead to results 
which you dislike ? 



* Kom., 10 Ch. Read the chapter. 

312 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 29 

They do lead to results. They are effects and tell us of a 
cause. They are powerful effects, and proclaim a powerful cause. 
They are moral and spiritual effects, and assure us of the existence 
of a moral and spiritual agent who has caused them. They are 
holy effects, and convince your sinful soul that they are produced 
by a holy being. But they are also benevolent, life-giving, blessed 
effects, and proclaim that God is love. The Lord the Spirit is 
as plainly declared in the facts of religious experience, as the 
Creator is in the creation of the universe; and it were as rank 
Atheism to attribute these orderly and blessed results to chance 
or to evil passions, as to attribute the Cosmos to blind fate, or 
to the beasts that perish. He is as much an enemy to his hap- 
piness who denies the one, as a foe to his reason who rejects 
the other. Dear Reader, why should you not believe in, 

6. The only science which can make you happy 1 which can 
bestow peace of mind, nerve you to conquer your evil habits, 
enable you to live a holy and happy life, and to die with a 
blessed hope of a glorious resurrection? You know there 
is no science which makes any such offers, or which you would 
believe if it did. But the Bible unfolds a science which does, 
and enables you to believe it too. The facts of religious expe- 
rience give most convincing evidence of the reality and power 
of the grace of God. It were as easy to persuade a Christian 
that he had produced this change of heart and life by the excite- 
ment of his own feelings, as that he had kindled the sun with 
a lucifer match. And the character of the work and the worker 
assures him that it will not be left unfinished. His faith re- 
ceives these facts of religious experience as the first installments 
upon God's bonds, and as pledges for the payment of the remain- 
der of his promises. The joy and peace which God gives him 
now, prove most satisfactorily his ability and willingness to give 
him larger measures of these enjoyments when he is capable of 
receiving them. Just as we have good reason to believe that he 
who has made the sun to rise out of darkness will guide him on- 
ward in his course to perfect day, have we also good reason to 
believe that he that hath begun the good work of his grace in 
us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. Christ is in 
us the hope of glory. This eternal life, which is begun in our 
souls, is so much superior to mere animal vitality, that we can not 
doubt that he who has given us the greater, will also give us the 

313 



30 SCIENCE, OR FAITH* 

lesser, and quicken our mortal bodies also, by his Spirit which 
dwelleth in us. We know that our Redeemer liveth. 

7. And now in conclusion, Dear Reader, we ask you not to 
take these things on our testimony, nor yet on our experience; 
but to try for yourself. taste and see that the Lord is good. 
Come see the Savior who has saved us, and be saved by him too. 
There is nothing more dangerous, unless resisting the evidence of 
the truth as it is in Jesus, than acknowledging this to be truth with- 
out immediately obeying the gospel. God requires your immediate 
and cordial acceptance of Christ to save you from your sins. 
He tells you that the only way of escape from your sins now and 
from hell hereafter is through him; for there is none other name 
given under heaven or among men whereby you must be saved. 
He promises to hear your prayer and give you his Holy Spirit 
to work in you the work of faith with power, if you will only 
and earnestly ask. - Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek and 
ye shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. What 
man is there of you whom, ff his son ask bread, will he 
give him a stone ? Or if he ask a fish will he give him a ser- 
pent 1 ? If ye then being evil know how to give good gifts unto 
your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give 
the Holy Spirit to them that ask him. 1 * 

Thus you will come to possess an actual experimental knowl- 
edge of the most excellent of the sciences. In the present 
begun enjoyment of eternal life you will, not merely believe in, 
but positively know, its Author, the only true God, and Jesus 
Christ whom he hath sent. You will rest in no fallible and 
erring testimony of man's wisdom, but your faith will stand in 
the power of God. You will be able to say, Now I believe, not 
because of thy sayings, for I have seen him myself, and know 
that this is indeed the Christ the Savior of the world.-f 

Hear God's own warrant and invitation to your poor, thirsty 
soul, to forsake your vanities and come and be eternally blessed 
in Christ. Have the witness in yourself and be a living proof of 
the blessed reality of religion. 

"Ho every one that thirsteth ! Come ye to the waters! 
And he who hath no money! Come ye buy and eat! 



* The Sermon on the Mount. Head it all. f John, Chap. IV. 

314 



SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 31 

Yea come ! Buy wine and milk without money and without 

price. 
Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread ? 
And your labor for that which satisfieth not? 
Hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is good, 
And let your soul delight itself in fatness. 
Incline your ear and come unto me : , 
Hear and your soul shall live : 

And I will make an everlasting covenant with you, 
Even the sure mercies of David. 

Behold! I have given him for a witness to the people, 
A leader and a commander to the people : 
Behold! thou shalt call nations that thou knowest not, 
And nations that knew not thee shall run unto thee, 
Because of the Lord thy God, 
And for the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee. 

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, 

Call ye upon him while he is near: 

Let the wicked forsake his way, 

And the unrighteous man his thoughts ; 

And let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy 

upon him, 
And to our God for he will abundantly pardon. 
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. 
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, 
So are my ways higher than your ways, 
And my thoughts than your thoughts. 
For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, 
And return not thither again, 

But water the earth and cause it to bring forth and bud, 
That it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater; 
So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: 
It shall not return unto me void, 
But it shall accomplish that which I please, 
And it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. 
For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. 
The mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into 

singing, 

315 



32 SCIENCE, OR FAITH. 

And all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands. 

Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, 

And instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree; 

And it shall be to the Lord for a name, 

For an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off" 



316 




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